Are they really green??

As we all know there are a lot of green products hitting the shelves and they are coming with a great marketing plan.  But are they really green?  According to Jacquelyn Ottman there are going to be some big changes this year in the world of green marketing.  She believes that green claims are going to be questioned, electronic companies will claim eco-performance, and companies will make and sell more green products.  Products are going to try to use less packaging, less energy use and reduced toxicity(no pvc or heavy metals).  They are going to be marketed to have higher performance levels, aesthetics and cost effectiveness on the front of their marketing materials, while awaiting potential greenwashing backlash.  Greenwashing  is used to describe the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.  

This article discusses that green products are Not as green as they claim to be.   For example, the sierra club named the Chevy Tahoe the "Green Car of the Year".  It is an eight-passenger car plastered with "hybrid" labels, even though it only gets 20 miles to the gallon.  The Toyota should have been named the green car of the year because it gets 46 miles to the gallon.  I do not see how they call a huge SUV a green vehicle.  Water bottles are pitched as eco friendly because of the eco-shaped bottle claiming that the manufacturer uses 30% less plastic than regular bottles because of the new shape.  I ask myself all the time, how do they get away with using terms like eco-friendly when their bottles are made using large amounts of energy, have do be transported using fossil fuels, and the bottles end up in landfills without biodegradability.  Simple Green is another product that has been around for years and is advertised as a green cleaner that is safer alternative to other cleaners.  They leave out that the key ingredient is butyl cellosolve, which is the same toxic solvent that is found in some traditional all-purpose cleaners.  

What it boils down to is that large companies are marketing their products as green when it turns out to be they are not even good for the environment, not to mention all the resources it takes to make them.  The companies have been using terms like "earth friendly", which really has no meaning.  What defines "earth friendly" and what gives these companies the right to double the selling price because of this term.  Within the next year Landor Associates estimated there will be $500 billion spent on green products.  Green products have been on the rise because of concern with global warming, but buying green will not cut close to cutting emissions.  Scot Case from Terra Choice Environmental Marketing said, there is "zero enforcement" in green marketing.  His company did a study and found that 99% of 1,018 green advertisement claims were misleading.  

I understand that companies want to make money and with global warming prevention pitching, what better way to do it.  I am for companies that are trying to design better ways to minimize resource use, but they need to look at their product from all angles.  For example, the man that made Swiffer made it to cut the water usage that goes along with mopping the floor.  What he didn't think of was that you have to throw the sheets away that are just going sit in a landfill.  I am not trying to say it is easy to design the perfect green product, it is almost impossible, but companies that wish to put out a green product should be required to qualify certain qualifications to market their products as green.