How to Tell if You're Being Greenwashed

You are almost done with your grocery store trip. Your cart is filled with broccoli for dinner tonight, canned soup for lunch tomorrow and more. Now you are walking down the paper goods aisle to pick up some paper towels for the month. You consider yourself a caring person. The kind of person that does their best to take care of their loved ones and the planet around them, so your choice of paper towels comes down to two rolls.

One roll has packaging covered with green leaves and has a stamp saying “Made from 100% recycled paper,” the other roll is covered in recycling symbols with a Rain Forest Alliance Certification. How do you know which to get? How do you know which company is bring honest about their environmental efforts and which one is just trying to charge you an extra dollar? There are a few tricks you can keep handy to tell if you are being green-washed or not.

First, when choosing brands to commit to, a sustainable brand is going to shout from the rooftops that they are sustainable. If you are having to dig to try and find any evidence of them doing good for the environment, they probably aren’t. Similarly, if you head to the brand’s website and they keep telling how great they are to the environment, but don’t clearly say how, it is not a good sign.

Let’s say as you are grocery shopping you come across one brand making a “regular,” non-sustainable version of an item and a “green” eco-friendly version. While this looks great at first, it is pretty clearly telling you that their typical business habits are not eco-friendly, which is why they have to have a dedicated line instead of only offering you the one eco-friendly option.

Third-party certifications can be extremely helpful if you know what certifications are best to look for and very overwhelming if you don’t. For small businesses these can be expensive for them to get so you are better off talking to the business directly to determine their sustainability. For large brands, though, this is one of the best ways to check whether a company is truly following through on the principles they say they stand for.

Good certifications require an un-invested third party to investigate and ensure the company is following the right ethical and sustainable practices to earn the certification.

Not all certifications are equal, though. Back in 2011 the company Tested Green came under fire for selling unverified environmental certifications. Be careful of any certification that lets a company self-evaluate. For example, the Energy Star certification let’s a company self-report, which can be easily manipulated.

The top certifications I recommend looking for are 1% for the Planet, Oeko-tex, SA 8000, Cradle to Cradle, Certified Carbon Neutral, Made Safe, Bluesign, Rain Forest Alliance, Global Organic Latex Standard (GOL) and Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). It is unlikely that a brand will have all of these, but if what you are buying has at least one of these certifications you can rest assured about your purchase.

Something that is often not effectively on the packaging is whether you can recycle your item or not. That means that planning ahead for its disposal and knowing whether the packaging will end up in the landfill or not depends on you. Head to dwswa.org/recycling-101 to determine what is accepted for recycling in our city and county so that you can know you have somewhere to dispose of your item sustainably.

It can be a confusing world out there when trying to shop for the good of the planet and its people. With these methods in your back pocket you are ready to tackle the grocery store, your favorite online boutique and even construction materials.

Amy Hartline is the recycling and education program coordinator for the Dalton-Whitfield Solid Waste Authority. Have a recycling question? Contact her at (706) 278-5001 or ahartline@dwswa.org.