These days, “green” products are all the rage. The term “green” or “environmentally friendly” is now connected to companies and industries not formally connected with environmental issues or even the outdoors.

Greenwashing, according to TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, is the false or misleading marketing of products to appeal to consumers who have strong environmental values. When viewing advertisements, product reviews and especially when making purchases, it is important to take all those boasting claims with a grain of salt.

We must remember that no consumer product is “good” for the environment. All products have their pros and cons. But we need to balance these to determine what choices we make: Should you buy this item, or can you skip it? Can you reuse something else?

When doing your quick cost-benefit analysis on purchases and products, there are three big greenwashing offenses to consider. Though there are plenty more, greenwashing over-emphasis, unsubstantiated claims and irrelevant claims are heavy hitters that are hard to miss if you know where to look.

In the greenwashing sphere, the majority of products hit one offense in particular – oversimplification. A product is applauded and emphasized for one “great” environmental attribute, such as being made of recycled materials, but there are no other reasons why the product is so “good” for the environment.

Every item has a lifecycle, referred to by those in the environmental field as “cradle to grave.” Everything has a footprint – from production materials and byproducts, transportation, usage and disposal.

There are pollution and waste products associated with every part of the cycle; this is the “footprint” left by the lifecycle. When you start digging down into the details of each part of production, mining, transportation, usage, disposal and more, the complexity is overwhelming.

The story is so multifaceted and complicated that when claims are too simplistic, sometimes the product seems too good to be true.

But just because something is recycled, it does not make it superior to other products.

When oversimplification isn’t the advertising offense, there are products that come with claims that cannot be fact checked or substantiated in any way.

Claims such as “all natural,” “green,” “environmentally friendly” and “eco-conscious” all mean nothing legally. Only a small number of claims result from enforced standards and safety measures, such as U.S. Department of Agriculture Organic ratings.

A label you probably haven’t seen, “not as environmentally degrading,” would better portray the picture of their products, but it doesn’t have the same spin – and it’s too long to fit on the packaging.

Sometimes greenwashing is a little harder to pick out if you’re not familiar with environmental sciences. There are some companies and marketers who use methods of misleading consumers, using irrelevant claims to make a product sound better. Companies will use this strategy to attach products to trends that would increase sales.

A good example of this is when foods are marked as vegan or vegetarian in the supermarket, which have always been that way, and have nothing to do with the issue of animal rights or food justice. They make these claims to draw people in, but the testimonies have nothing to do with their product.

If no product is really environmentally friendly, that does not mean it is game-over for environmentalists and our futures. Humanity, along with every other species on our planet, has to survive with the tools and resources provided.

The greenwashing dilemma only calls for us the consumers to be knowledgeable of issues and products, while looking past the horse-and-pony show of testaments and assertions by companies.

After all, that Franzia wine box labeled “environmentally friendly” might not be as amicable with nature as suggested.

Meg Callaghan is a senior environmental studies major at SUNY-ESF. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at mlcallag@syr.edu.

Published on October 1, 2013 at 1:08 am