Eco-conscious customers who flock to one Washington store say they have chosen the environmentally friendly living shop because they know they are in little danger of being "greenwashed."
"I can give you a ton of words that mean absolutely, positively nothing," said Daniel Velez, owner of Greater Goods, where the shelves are stocked only after careful, painstaking research.
"The word natural. The word earth-friendly. It means nothing since it's not legally defined. Biodegradable, except in California, doesn't actually carry any weight of law."
Around the world, there are few legal requirements companies must adhere to when marketing products as green or sustainable. As increasingly eco-conscious consumers are faced with more and more choices, experts warn that marketing strategies dubbed "greenwashing" could be leading them astray.
"Today it suffices to just slap some green paint on a product to call it green," Bernard Caron, director of marketing for the Belgian company Ecover, told AFP.
Ecover, a long-time international leader in ecologically safe cleaning products, has rejected the European Commission's "Ecolabel" as the standards set by the voluntary environmental certification were not high enough.
Offering green options can be a lucrative endeavor. According to a 2008 study by GfK Roper Consulting and Yale University, half of respondents reported they would definitely or probably pay 15 percent more for eco-friendly laundry detergent or cars.
"Many American consumers, even in the face of economic uncertainty, express a willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly products," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of Yale Project on Climate Change, in a statement.
Independent voluntary labels are increasingly filling the void left by a lack of enforceable government regulations on green marketing, said David Wigder, vice president of RecycleBank, an international rewards program that encourages green living.
But consumers often do not understand the implications of the certifications that do exist, he said.
"It's hard to describe green versus greener behavior," Wigder told AFP, explaining that many labels only apply to a certain step in the lifecycle of a product.
For example, the US Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star efficiency rating for household appliances does not take into account the environmental impacts of manufacturing or disposal of an appliance.
Often companies make environmental claims without providing any publicly available proof, which makes navigating the growing assortment of "green" options tricky, said Scott Case, vice president of Terra Choice.
Terra Choice, an environmental marketing firm, has identified "The Seven Sins of Greenwashing" in a report that cautions against marketing tactics that leverage consumers' desire to factor the environment into their shopping choices.
"Earth friendly garbage bags!" Case exclaimed on a recent tour of a Washington supermarket.
"The bag itself might be recyclable, but once you fill it with garbage, garbage trucks haul it away to a landfill and incinerate it. This stuff's not ever going to get recycled."
In the toilet tissue aisle, Case reached for Scott Naturals toilet paper, saying there was no third party verification to back up a claim that the product was made from at least 40 percent recycled materials.
The nationally distributed household paper products manufacturer began selling its eco-option almost a year ago, and told AFP that recycling standards are strictly monitored internally.
Developing a line of Scott products sporting the slogan "Green Done Right" was "an opportunity for the brand to expand in the marketplace," said brand manager Aric Melzl.
According to Joey Mooring, a spokesperson for parent-company Kimberly Clark, the manufacturer also takes various behind-the-scenes measures such as using post-consumer recycled plastic in its packaging.
Experts say every single purchase has hidden environmental costs, whether it be in the ingredients, manufacturing, or disposal of the product.
The best thing consumers can do is read the fine print, and try to decipher the specifics behind a product's "green" label.
Climate pledges put world on track for 3.5 C warming: experts
Paris (AFP) Dec 6, 2009 –
Current pledges from rich and developing nations for cutting carbon pollution will stoke potentially catastrophic warming by century's end, according to a study released on Sunday on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit.
National commitments proposed so far for the December 7-18 UN conference would mean the global temperature would rise by 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times, way over a 2.0 C (3.6 F) threshold widely considered safe, the study said.
The study said concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) would hit about 650 parts per million (ppm), according to the tally published by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and energy specialists Ecofys.
"The pledges on the table will not halt emissions growth before 2040, let alone by 2015 as indicated by the IPCC [the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and are far from halving emissions by 2050 as has been called for by the G8," said Niklas Hoehne of Ecofys.
"Instead, global emissions are likely to be nearly double 1990 levels by 2040 based on present pledges."
The Copenhagen conference gathers the 192-member UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Its task is to craft a global pact that will dramatically reduce man-made carbon emissions — invisible gases that trap solar heat and warm the atmosphere, interfering with Earth's delicate climate system.
Hoehne said that pledges by developed countries so far were currently projected to be 13 to 19 percent below 1990 levels.
But forest credits that these countries are likely to claim against their emission target would lower this contribution by around five percent.
The IPCC, the UN's panel of climate scientists, says cuts of around 25-40 percent reductions by industrialized countries by 2020 from 1990 levels would be needed to achieve the 2 C (3.6 F) target.
For developing countries, emissions cuts of 15 to 30 percent by 2020 against "business-as-usual" scenarios are needed to avoid crossing the 2 C (3.6 F) theshold.
Voluntary promises by China to make gains in energy efficiency and vows, also non-binding, by Brazil and Indonesia to tackle deforestation, will be a big help, said the paper.
Overall, developing country emissions are projected to be close to the IPCC range, it added.
In contrast, a report issued Sunday by climate economist Nicholas Stern and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) concluded that closing the "emissions gap" could be somewhat easier than thought.
"Existing proposals from developed and developing countries constitute a big step towards a level consistent with the 2 C (3.6 F) goal," which would require that CO2 emissions stay under 44 billion tonnes in 2020, their report said.
"Taking countries' highest intentions would take the world to around 46 billion tonnes (of carbon)," meaning that only a two-billion-tonne shortfall would have to be bridged.
To achieve this, though, "would require governments over the next two weeks and over the next few years to match words with deeds, and ambition with actions," Stern said.
"If they do, we could embark on the most dynamic and creative period of the world's economic history, an new energy and industrial revolution."
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