Eco-Buyer Beware: Green Can Be Deceiving - TIME

Eco-Buyer Beware: Green Can Be Deceiving - TIME


Scot case was not happy. Vice president of the environmental marketing firm TerraChoice, Case last year sent his researchers into a big-box retail store to evaluate the green advertising claims of some of the products on its shelves. The results were startling: of the 1,018 products TerraChoice surveyed, all but one failed to live up fully to their green boasts. Words like nontoxic were used in meaninglessly vague ways. Terms like Energy Star certified were in fact not backed up by certification.

"I went ballistic," Case says. "I assumed the researchers had butchered the study." He had his team redo the survey, but the results came back the same. "It just shows we're awash in greenwash."