(How to) Do Good Well by Avoiding Greenwashing & Goodwashing
"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." (Jane Goodall)
What are Greenwashing & Goodwashing?
Greenwashing is when companies claim to care about their impacts on the environment by promoting their efforts as being more sustainable than they really are. These claims range from a bit of exaggeration to blatant lies.
Goodwashing is very similar to greenwashing. It happens when companies claim to care about people, communities, and stakeholders— again, inflating, exaggerating, or even entirely fabricating the positive impacts of their actions.
We’ve all likely seen products labeled as “eco-friendly” (usually with green or blue fonts and images of nature scenes). We might be less likely to notice greenwashing & goodwashing when companies engage in other actions intended to mislead stakeholders regarding their environmental (greenwashing) and social (goodwashing) performance and benefits, while they continue with business as usual. Common tactics include: lack of certifications, fake endorsements, deceptive imagery, exaggerated claims, and hidden partnerships and investments.
This illustrative article, How to Avoid Greenwashing, from the Network for Business Sustainabilty offers a great graphic on various types of greenwashing (that are easily extended to goodwashing as well):
Why do Greenwashing & Goodwashing matter?
According to a 2021 study, almost half of all environmental claims online are exaggerated, false or deceptive. It’s often a ploy used by advertisers— and it works! For the past decade, research has shown that consumers not only prefer products that promise positive social and environmental impacts, but that the vast majority of consumers are willing to pay more for them (my favorite compilation of research on this topic is here: https://www.businessofpurpose.com/statistics).
What can we do about it?
A fabulous framework for accessing and avoiding greenwashing is published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal article cited here: https://nbs.net/how-to-avoid-greenwashing. However, slogging through academic writing isn’t always the easiest lift; I’m a fan of optimizing for what’s convenient (and fun!).
The two easiest approaches I’ve found to avoiding greenwashing & goodwashing are:
Shop local and as close to the source as possible, buying from farmers, producers, makers, craftspeople— supporting small businesses in the community. (Or better yet, when possible, consider borrowing, bartering, or buying used; we’ll discuss those options in more detail in future posts.)
Choose products and services from companies that are Certified B Corporations
Why? Certified B Corporations meet the highest verified standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. The Certification process uses credible, comprehensive, transparent, and independent standards of social and environmental performance. It’s a super rigorous process: hundreds of thousands of companies have completed the B Impact Assessment, but only 6,320 (as of January 2023) have scored high enough and jumped through all of the hoops to become Certified B Corporations.
We’ll talk more about the B Corp Movement in future posts (if you’re curious, see this 30 second “What is a B Corp” video; and business leaders in Florida, please consider joining Florida for Good, our B Local chapter), for now, look for the B Corporation logo as an easy way to avoid greenwashing & goodwashing.
Are there companies other than those that are Certified B Corporations who truly walk their talk around issues related to social impact, sustainable/resilient/regenerative economies, CSR/ESG, JEDI, stakeholder/rights-holder capitalism, etc.? Absolutely! It’s just more difficult to evaluate and ascertain the validity of their claims.
Examples of companies telling stories vs those who authentically walk their talk:
Clothing: Columbia vs Patagonia
Say you’re looking for a new fleece hoodie (because it’s been especially cold this winter thanks to the climate crisis). You head to your local outdoors store, REI, or hop online– perhaps hoping to find a deal. You find two fleece hoodies, one from Columbia and one from Patagonia– similarly priced (around $80-90). Both companies *claim* to care about people and the planet.
You go to Columbia’s website and quickly skim Columbia’s ESG report, and you see they even created a Year in Review video, mentioning:
We are committed to doing the right thing, are you?
We believe in a sustainable planet
We support the the Planet Water Foundation in northern Vietnam (providing water to 5,000 people each day)
Columbia’s Outdry Extreme Eco Collection (commitment to responsible down, invested in standing behind animal welfare, and made sure they are doing their part in joining the highest industry standard)
Columbia’s Titanium Eco is made with 40% recycled materials
... sounds like a pretty solid case. So you might be swayed to purchase the Columbia fleece hoodie.
However, if you look closer, you’ll find that Patagonia creates exponentially more positive impacts each year. In 2018 they shifted their corporate purpose to, “We’re in business to save our home planet.” They reincorporated in 2022 and created the Patagonia Purpose Trust and the Holdfast Collective as explained here, placing the majority of their profits into a trust used to positively impact people and the planet, and they continue to:
Donate at least 1% of their sales each year to grassroots environmental nonprofits (totaling over $140M) through their partnership with 1% for the Planet
Provide transparency about their materials sourcing, manufacturing & supply chain issues, and social responsibility-related programs as discussed in the Our Footprint section of their website
Close their stores on Election Day, encouraging all employees to vote
Offer consumers the option to purchase used Patagonia clothing through the Worn Wear store in hopes of reducing waste (so you might find that same fleece hoodie used, for less, from Patagonia’s Worn Wear store).
And… Patagonia is a Certified B Corporation! 👏🏼
Lip Balm: Burts Bees vs The Body Shop, Beauty Counter, or Eco Lips
Or say, for example, you’re looking for some lip balm (as cold winter often means chapped lips). You consider this plastic tube of yummy smelling beeswax mixed with other moistening goodness from Burt’s Bees, taking a moment to notice the rabbit with stars “no animal testing” logo and the ubiquitous and misleading “recyclable plastic” sign. Maybe you even surf over to the Burt’s Bees website and read that they feature “ingredients from nature” and “responsible sourcing” (without any data or information to back up those claims). You look for the B Corporation logo and don’t see one (because they’re not a Certified B Corp).
Then you head over to The Body Shop, Beautycounter, or Eco Lips and you read about their lip care products— all of which are made with certified organic ingredients and certified fair trade sources, by people earning living wages. Because all three brands are Certified B Corporations who truly walk their talk around sustainability and social impact. They’re among the now 50+ members of the newly formed B Corp Beauty Coalition, which includes Plaine Products, a hair and skin care company started by sisters and University of Florida Grads (Lindsey & Alison Delaplaine) who dreamt of a world with less plastic waste (their products are available online and at Life Unplastic here in Gainesville, FL).
Shoes: Amazon’s 206 Collective Shoes vs Allbirds
Perhaps you’d like a pair of Allbirds sneakers, and find a similar shoe on Amazon for less than half the price. Then you read the Inc. article about an open letter to Jeff Bezos where Allbirds CEO & B Corp leader, Joey Zwillinger said, “As we've done with over 100 other brands who were interested in implementing our renewable materials into their products, including direct competitors, we want to give you the components that would make this shoe not just look like ours, but also match our approach to sustainability. Please steal our approach to sustainability.”
Cleaning Products
We could repeat this exercise with cleaning products like Clorox GreenWorks vs. Method Cleaners, Seventh Generation, or Grove Collective (all three of which are Certified B Corporations).
Pledges & Promises vs. Action & Impact
Certified B Corps don’t just pledge to be Net Zero, they take action by partnering with industry-leading firms like We Are Neutral/Sense of Scale (a hybrid non-profit/Certified B Corp) which helps business and nonprofit leaders (as well as residents through their Neutral Neighbor program) to calculate and offset their carbon, water, waste, and plastic footprints.
In short:
The quick and easy answer to avoiding greenwashing & goodwashing is to be conscientious consumers by buying from well-known and trusted local sources, and/or by choosing products and services from Certified B Corporations.
B Corps Go Beyond Greenwashing! B Lab shares, “Going beyond greenwashing is walking the talk to tackle the climate crisis. In a world where lots of companies make misleading statements or just put up a show distracting from their far-from-ideal practices B Corps distinguish themselves by truly taking meaningful action when facing the biggest challenges of our time.” March is #BCorpMonth, so be on the lookout for the B Corp Movement’s #WeGoBeyond campaign to launch in a few weeks.
While there’s not (yet) an easy-to-search directory of B Corps, B Lab (the nonprofit behind B Corporations & Public Benefit Corporations) offers this directory: https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp.
You can find mentions of choosing Certified B Corporations when shopping, here:
Here’s a question I find challenging:
How do we talk about greenwashing & goodwashing without risking that our words landing for others as virtue signaling?
It’s never my intention to engage in virtue signaling. As much as I love collecting and sharing information about issues related to ESG, JEDI, social justice, climate action, the warm glow of giving, sympathetic joy, positivity resonance, collective effervescence, and collective action (which are all terms that relate to how good it feels to be of help to others and contribute to something greater than ourselves), sometimes I’m hesitant to share about these issues, fearing that doing so may be off-putting or polarizing for others.
At the same time, we’re all in this together, and I want to share information and resources in hopes they may be of help to others. Do y’all ever feel this way? I’d love to know how you handle it.
Resources for more info:
How to Avoid Greenwashing - Network for Business Sustainability
The ASBN Guide to Greenwashing - American Sustainable Business Network
How Can Business Combat Greenwashing? - B Lab Forces for Good Podcast
What is greenwashing—and how do you avoid it? - National Geographic
How to tell credible eco-labels from “greenwash” - Corporate Knights
FTC’s Green Guides (to help marketers avoid making environmental claims that mislead consumers)
Thank you for choosing to spend your precious time, energy, and attention reading my very first post! Feel free to reach out if you have questions, comments, and/or concerns; I’m happy to do my best to be of help.
If this wasn’t your cup of tea, I hope you’ll offer me the grace of sticking around for a few more posts before you decide whether or not to remain subscribed. I’d love to hear what (if anything) here resonated with you (so I can do more of that in future posts), or you can simply tap the heart below with your quick vote of encouragement, as a nudge for me to keep the posts coming.
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With gratitude & excitement,
Kristin
p.s. #1: If you’d like to learn more about what I mean by “creating strategic impact,” give me a shout and I’ll gladly share with you a quick Guide to Planning Your Impact Strategy that I’m cooking up.
p.s. #2: As I mentioned up top, each post will end with a pair of gifs (sometimes they take a few moments to load, thanks for your patience), one that shows me falling, followed by a gif of me flying. Learning to fly on my mat (first by falling countless times) has helped me navigate falling, failing, and challenging situations off of my mat— practicing courage, kindness, gratitude, hope, grace, and joy with myself and others.
In this first post, I’m attempting to jump into crow — this was the very first floaty/flying thing I learned to do (after crow/bakasana and flying pigeon, two foundational arm balances). It was also something I thought I’d never be able to do again after nearly losing my right leg to Pyoderma Gangrenosa which became infected with MRSA in 2015, nearly claiming my life and my leg. Thankfully 13 months later my leg was whole again. Over time, and with patience, I was able to learn to land gently, without putting pressure on the parts of my leg that have little tissue.
I’ve learned so much from practicing patience and gentleness both on and off my yoga mat. (I find being patient and gentle with myself especially difficult. I imagine it’s the same for some of you, too).
Speaking of which, the first Saturday of the month from 11:30-12pm ET at Searchlight Yoga (via Zoom only) I offer Free Pop-Up Mini-Workshops on Floating & Flying. February’s workshop is coming soon! On Saturday, 2/4 I’ll offer a little workshop on Finding Flight: The Fundamentals of Overcoming Fear, knowing how to Fall Safely, and having Fun Learning to Float & Fly. If you’re interested, register here for free to receive the Zoom link.