Greenwashers may be subject to increasing litigation

Greenwashers beware. According to an article published in a legal journal greenwashing brands may increasingly face litigation. Lawyers Victoria Davis Lockard and Josh Becker from US firm Alston & Bird warn that eco-fraud is ‘the latest flavor of consumer product class litigation’ – lawsuits where multiple plaintiffs take action against a product that has failed to deliver on its advertising claims.

Lockard and Becker claim that not only may the courts be more sympathetic to an environmental cause than exaggerated efficacy claims, but the plaintiffs in eco-fraud cases will have powerful allies in the form of environmental Read more

Will USDA Organic Standards Finally Include Cosmetics?

The boom in unofficial organic standards for cosmetic products is a huge source of confusion for consumers who don’t know which standards are the most stringent. I sometimes wonder if some members of the ‘organic’ industry enjoy the bewilderment because it makes it easier for them to market synthetic concoctions as ‘organic’ and ‘natural,’ without redress. 

It is often suggested in the media and by some cosmetic companies that there are no official certification standards that can be applied to cosmetic products, but this simply isn’t true. The United States Department for Agriculture (USDA) National Organic Program (NOP) has standards in
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Natrue and Natural Products Association Join Forces

European certifier of ‘natural’ cosmetics Natrue has signed a mutual recognition agreement with the Natural Products Association (NPA) in the US, meaning that products complying with the standards of either of these bodies will not have to undergo the full certification process again when they wish to market their products across the Atlantic. Natrue also signed an equivalency agreement with Quality Assurance International (QAI) certifiers earlier in the year.

I am not Natrue’s biggest fan. Their standards are abysmally weak
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Organic Cosmetic Confusion

The boom in organic certification schemes is counterproductive, confusing for consumers and draws attention away from producers of genuinely certified organic products, who are lost amongst larger competitors that dupe consumers with weak certification labels and false claims. “Certification wars” are well underway and on Cosmeticsdesign-europe.com  you can see a video of Amarjit Sahota, director of organic market research organisation, Organic Monitor, discuss the issues involved. Sahota has called for the possibility of a global standard becoming a reality, but I am far from convinced unless the standards are stringent, official and enforced.

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Report Reveals Greenwashing is Rife

A report published by North American environmental marketing firm TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, entitled The Seven Sins of Greenwashing (a follow up to the 2007 report, The Six Sins of Greenwashing) has revealed that the number of products making environmental claims has increased by an average of 79 percent in stores visited in 2007 and 2008, and 98 percent of products commit at least one of the Sins of Greenwashing highlighted in the report

TerraChoice researchers investigated retailers in the US, UK, Australia and Canada in November 2008 and January 2009, with instructions to record all Read more

Toxic Beauty in New Zealand Sunday Star Times

The New Zealand Sunday Star Times ran a feature today about the toxic synthetic chemicals used in cosmetic products. The article features part of an interview I did with Karen Tay, a journalist for the newspaper.

A snippet of the article is below and you can click on the link at the bottom to read the full article.

Is your skincare harming you? Sunday Star Times. New Zealand. Sunday 1st March, 2009.

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Ethical Business Guide Denounces Greenwashing

The Ethical Business Guide produced by Kim Stoddart and Tor Goldfield of ethical PR company BlueRocket, advising businesses starting out in the ethical realm, has suggested that people are warming to ethical businesses due to mistrust of traditional business practices and criticises greenwashing, saying
“The public has become weary of grand claims, which can, when investigated further, amount to little more than fancy marketing. So it is essential that any claims a company makes can stand the test of time.”

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