(Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune/MCT)
How green is that product?
An increasing number of consumers want ‘green’ products for their homes. How to determine which ones are and which ones claim to be but aren’t?
By Stephanie Broadhurst | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor/ June 16, 2008 edition
Correspondent Stephanie Broadhurst talks about an independent furniture manufacturer who's going green in his production.
Correspondent Stephanie Broadhurst
Chicago
Stroll around a typical home-goods store and you might feel as though you’re walking outdoors – everything is turning green. Over the past year, more mainstream companies have jumped on the green bandwagon, unveiling “natural” cleaners, recycled products and packaging, sustainably made furniture, and housewares aimed at a growing market niche: the green consumer.
Wal-Mart, for instance, is stocking shelves with organic cotton towels and Clorox’s latest cleaning line, Green Works.
Walk into Crate & Barrel, and you’ll probably notice chairs made of sustainable wood, teak dining collections, and a shopping environment with a low-energy lighting system.
Companies are realizing that going green – or at least sprinkling some green into their mix of conventional products – is good business. Indeed, American consumers are expected to double their spending on ecofriendly products and services in the next year to an estimated $500 billion, according to Landor Associates.
“I find myself weighing a green purchase versus a regular purchase, and there were many times in the past when price would have made the decision for me,” says Leah Ingram of New Hope, Pa., whose blog, The Lean Green Family, chronicles her family’s transition to a greener lifestyle. “Now that I’m more aware of [the environment], I’m willing to spend a little more.”
Yet it’s unclear how much of an impact all this green buying will actually have on the environment. Purchasing anything, regardless of how green it is, adds something to a person’s carbon footprint. And concern is growing over “greenwashing” – or misleading claims made by companies about the environmental benefits of their products.
“There’s so much greenwashing going on. It can be frustrating to find out which companies are really green,” says Amy Todisco, owner of GreenLivingNow.com, an online natural products store in Huntington, Vt. “When you find out that [some brands] are not doing what we thought they were doing, it’s very disheartening.”
Ms. Todisco has been researching products like laundry detergent, cleaning supplies, and personal-care items for more than 14 years. She’s found that many that are marketed as “natural” still use synthetic ingredients.
One of the challenges for consumers is that there are no uniform standards for “green,” says Celia Lehrman, deputy home editor of Consumer Reports.
As a result, products are appearing on store shelves in shades of green. One company may remove or substitute a few ingredients and call the result ecofriendly when, in fact, its product still contains traces of harmful elements. Another company may take an approach in which everything from materials to packaging to distribution is designed to be as ecofriendly as possible.
While this is the ideal, it can get complicated and expensive in a global economy, says Ed Stafford, an associate professor of marketing at Utah State University who has studied green marketing.
Ms. Lehrman suggests that consumers look for third-party certification on products. (See below.)
One area consumers aren’t likely to overlook in deciding on a product is performance, says Dr. Stafford. If a company decides to go green, its product has to be as good as the nongreen product. “The bottom line is, we don’t buy carpet cleaner to save the planet. We buy it to clean our carpets.”
Testing of green and energy-efficient products has shown that performance is improving on the whole, Lehrman says, although she advises checking the Consumer Reports website for specific product reviews.
Sometimes, just refraining from buying anything is the greenest choice a consumer can make, experts say. “If you need something new, you have to weigh the whole life-cycle cost of the product and decide whether or not you’re really helping the environment by buying something,” Lehrman says, citing $400 organic sheets as an example. “Is it better to just not buy new sheets?”
“Buy less, buy better, and when possible, buy local,” advises Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, creator of “Apartment Therapy,” a book and website that encourages green living. He advocates “editing” your home, buying only what you really need.
“The whole green mantra is ‘reduce, reuse, and recycle.’ It’s not ‘shop,’ ” says Linda Hunter, author of “Green Clean,” a guide to green cleaning solutions.
But trying to transform your entire home into a green one overnight can seem daunting, says Ms. Ingram. “You have to take it step by step. I can’t change everything about how I live, but … if you just take it a little at a time, it won’t feel so overwhelming.”
How to tell if a product is really green
When you’re buying green products for your home, checking the label isn’t enough, consumer advocates say. It’s better to check for third-party certification. Some common ones:
• Designed for the Environment – Introduced by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to indicate that products contain environmentally preferable ingredients.
• Green Seal – Aims to reduce the environmental impacts tied to the use, manufacture, and disposal of products and services.
• Energy Star – An EPA certification whose goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency.
• Water Sense – It certifies water-efficient products such as faucets and toilets.
• Forest Stewardship Council – Products that bear the FSC logo are guaranteed to contain wood or wood products harvested from a certified, well-managed forest.
• Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) – Promotes sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, sustainable materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.
For more details on eco-labels and ways to go green at home, check the guides on these websites: a Consumer Reports site that includes definitions of eco terms; Treehugger’s How to Go Green Guides; and the Organic Consumers Association.
( More stories )
Comments
2. Archmac | 06.17.08
Green Seal lists Shaklee’s Basic H2 Super Cleaning Concentrate as an approved product.
Another excellent source is http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/
3. Shammara | 06.17.08
Our product reviews site http://www.buzzillions.com launched a Green page: http://www.buzzillions.com/earth_day.
Our goal is to identify all of our retailers products that are eco-friendly, and through customer reviews people can see if it’s actually a good product or not.
While there are more and more green products available, they are not of the highest quality, and through customer reviews you can see which green products people love and which they hate.
4. will keyworth | 06.17.08
i am a current customer of amy todisco’s company, green living now, and she has opened my eyes to a completely new way of looking at products that claim to be “green”. i love the fact that i don’t have to discover the good ones by trial and error. she’s done the footwork already, and because i know and trust her, it’s a no-brainer!
5. Texas_Sage | 06.18.08
““The whole green mantra is ‘reduce, reuse, and recycle.’ It’s not ‘shop,’ ” ”
I’ve only been saying this for years! And its one of the reasons I HATE the go green movement. Its driven by consumerism!
6. DJ in CR | 06.18.08
I agree with you Texas_Sage, yet shop we will, and consumers can wield such power because we can actually change the company behavior and as a result, the way trees are harvested. I live in Costa Rica and work with the Rainforest Alliance, which certifies forestlands to Forest Stewardship standards. You can also find the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal on coffee, fruit, tea, chocolate and other tropics foods…and believe me, it really has changed the way these crops are grown. But it will only work if consumers look for third-party certification seals and change their buying habits.
7. Laura from evo | 06.18.08
If you visit http://www.evo.com you’ll find the only website that compares green qualities of over 20,000 products - and only products with at least one inherently green quality ever make it onto the site. It’s the easiest way to find the greenest version of what you’re looking for - think of it as the cnet for the green space. Greener choices everyday!
8. Nick DiGiacomo | 06.18.08
Here’s another place to go for help when making “green” choices for the home and family. We’ve just launched a site that focuses on the companies behind the products - measuring their reputations not only for how they treat the environment, but for how they treat their employees, communities and society in general as well. It’s called Vanno ( htp:/www.vanno.com/ )
You can search on thousands of companies, including hundreds in the home and garden or cleaning business, and see what other consumers and citizens think of them when it comes to sustainability, conservation, energy efficiency and safety and dozens of other aspects of reputation.
As just one example, if you wanted to find cleaning product companies - large and small, public and private, local and global - that had high Reputation Scores when it came to sustainability AND product safety AND human rights, you could do so by running the following search: http://vanno.com/search?subval_ids%5B%5D=1&subval_ids%5B%5D=17&subval_ids%5B%5D=21&cat_id=36&public_filter=all&commit=Refine+Results
You can also vote and comment on the user-submitted Articles behind the Reputation Scores, and share your insights into green (and not so green) companies.
9. deneeka edward-sontor | 06.23.08
it is the most awsomest site in the world and deneeka likes steele jonston and we spelt steele joshton rong so suck on the cookies
11. alissa parkinson | 06.23.08
motorola rulz and jackson is in love with alissa parkinson and sams in love with steele
12. jackson man | 06.23.08
. . . I DONT LIKE ALLSISA SEAN YOU PROBLY LIKE HER MORE CAUSE YOU LOVE OTHER SPICEIES AND ALL I DON”T GO FOR FISH BTW
14. samual geaney | 06.23.08
green washing sux yeah =) and who eva reds this rulz and sux cookies=) bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…….. ifyour reading this message out loud say xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
15. donkey quack | 06.23.08
your all inappropriate little bottom fluffs and everyone loves alissa parkinson wat r u on about!!!!………… (L)
yooh are gayness!
24. Chris Milton | 06.24.08
Readers may want to check out this blog (http://www.corporate-eye.com/2008/06/a-blanket-of-certificates/) which also contains other useful info about how to determine the greenness of goods.
25. Lilian | 06.29.08
I think its also wise to investigate with the company where the product is sold. I called http://www.arenaturals.com while visiting their site for eco friendly dining solutions. They were very helpful and knowledgeable about their products which helped me find what I needed.
26. used furniture | 07.08.08
we like to use green products in cleaning our office furniture too. there’s no real merit to using toxic chemicals anymore for simple daily chores, especially as these safer items do not sacrifice quality. i did not see the products we use as listed here, so surely this is not a comprehensive list.
27. Geor | 07.13.08
Objective crowdsourced ratings of mainstream consumer products based on data available at the manufacturer level: http://greenerone.com
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1. Judy Arbinger | 06.16.08
how green are the Shaklee cleaning products?