How to avoid small but serious greenwashing traps

Is there a chance your brand is greenwashing without your knowledge?

A 2023 analysis by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) found 57 per cent of Australian brands were making questionable environmental claims.

But it’s not always big claims that trip brands up. Often, it’s the small things.

Here are five of the small but costly traps to watch out for.

Make language specific

When it comes to making claims about sustainable products, a major watch-out is the use of broad, non-specific words.

Regulators like the ACCC are closing in on terms like eco-friendly, environmentally-friendly, green, ‘kinder to the planet,’ and even sustainable.

These terms are deemed overly broad, conveying little information other than that the business is, in some way, claiming to be less damaging to the environment than others.

Many of these terms may mislead consumers into thinking that, on balance, the business has no environmental harm.

It’s much better to be deliberate and specific. Brands keen to get this right can look to B-Corp Bellroy for guidance.

Instead of promoting a vaguely ‘eco’ range of products, the luggage and travel brand goes straight to specifying fabric and material compositions. A dedicated page on the Bellroy website includes further detail on its plant-based leather alternatives, recycled polyester or nylon, or water-reducing gold-rated leather.

Use certified icons only

Regulators take a dim view of ‘homemade’ icons – self-styled green leaves, footprints, water drops and the like – that could be mistaken for third-party certification and falsely give trust to consumers.

The simplest solution is to use official icons whenever talking about sustainability.

Case in point is Aesop, a brand whose iconography is reserved for official stamps from B-Corp and Leaping Bunny, the organisation led by the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (CCIC). Through the Leaping Bunny Logo, the CCIC works with companies to help make shopping for animal-friendly products easier and more trustworthy.

Even better, Aesop explains the certifications and the safeguards they have in place to ensure they keep them.

Be transparent with progress: realistic, not optimistic

Regulators know that sustainability is an ongoing journey for most brands – almost all products have an adverse impact on the environment through their use of resources. Therefore, it’s better to show honest progress and realistic plans rather than overly rosy statements.

A brand that gets this right is Bonds. The apparel business is transparent about its journey away from single-use plastics, acknowledging what needs to change, from product packaging to swing tags. On the Planet Comfy page on its website, the brand states what is and isn’t Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified and is upfront about a former recycling partnership that collapsed.

Visuals must be specifically relevant

Global businesses (most recently, HSBC) have been cautioned for the use of overly virtuous images – visuals that are too suggestive of environmental virtues or benefits that the product or service does not have.

Suggestive pictures, like flowers blooming from an exhaust pipe, or an aeroplane juxtaposed with a green globe, have led to fines from international regulatory bodies.

The use of colour is under the microscope, too.

Brands like H&M – which, in a study by the Changing Markets Foundation, was found to be unable to uphold 96 per cent of its sustainability claims – have been criticised for using green labels and packaging on unsustainable products.

One brand that’s getting it right is Country Road which gets a positive mention for its images and photography. The brand clearly represents specific sustainable partners and programs as well as the materials it uses.

Use accurate, clear, explainable terms

Accuracy and clarity matters.

Take the example of Windex which had to relabel packaging from, “100 per cent recycled ocean plastic” to, “100 per cent recycled ocean-bound plastic” to reflect precisely where the waste was picked up from. Ocean-bound plastic is plastic that will eventually end up in the ocean but hasn’t yet.

Again, we should credit Country Road, a brand with product listings that don’t simply state sustainable credentials, but also explain the meaning of things like Good Earth Cotton and Fibre Trace. The brand’s website and social media outline concepts like circularity and traceable materials, giving weight to the accuracy of its claims.

Awareness of the small things

It’s likely that most brand owners are doing everything in their power to ensure they are not greenwashing. But it’s clear small things can make a big difference.

Brands should ensure language is specific, icons are certified, progress is transparent and realistic, photography and visuals are entirely relevant, and terminology is accurate, clear and explainable.

Finally, some sectors are particularly prone to claims that will concern investigators. For brands in the cosmetic, clothing, footwear or food and drink sectors, be sure to pay close attention to the trip hazards mentioned above before the regulators do.

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