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

OCA Follow-up Cosmetic Tests Reveal Lower 1,4-Dioxane

In 2007 and 2008 the US Organic Consumers Association (OCA) in conjunction with Dr Bronners and health consumer advocate David Steinman, released a study which showed that a number of products labelled as ‘organic’ and even some certified as ‘organic,’ (apart from those certified by the USDA which has stringent oragnic standards), contained the petrochemical carcinogen 1,4-dioxane.

As a result in May 2008 the OCA and Dr Bronner’s filed Cease and Desist Letters to many of the brands making fraudulent claims when they were in Read more

Organic Products Found to Contain Parabens

Premium Beauty News, a magazine for cosmetic industry insiders, has revealed that The French Agency for the Medical Safety of Health Products (AFSSAPS) and the General Directorate for Competition Policy, Consumers and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) have published the results of a joint marketing survey, looking into the ‘preservative-free’ claims of ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ brands.

The survey looked at 30 cosmetic products, with 28 of these being certified organic (to standards such as Ecocert, BDIH, ICEA-AIAB and Visagro) and 6 being labelled as a ‘natural’ and/or ‘organic’ product. 12 claimed to be free Read more

Natrue and QAI Work on Recognition Agreement

Natrue, an interest grouping of international cosmetic manufacturers, who have developed their own ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ standards, are working on a mutual recognition agreement with Quality Assurance International (QAI) in the US, to ensure that products complying with the Natrue or NSF/ANSI 305 ‘made with organic’ standard will be recognised by both bodies. The alliance is to cut costs and save time for manufacturers, according to the Natrue General Secretary.

Natrue was launched last year and 120 products have been certified already. Natrue represent cosmetic companies such as Lavera, Logona, Primavera, Read more

The Organic Greenwashing Game: Part One

So, you’ve purchased a raft of delightfully fragrant and attractively packaged beauty products, lured by the promise of natural botanicals, but are you being conned? 

We are becoming increasingly enamoured with beauty brands marketed as ‘natural’ and ‘organic,’ understandably anticipating that we are purchasing something that has undergone minimal processing in the period between being plucked from the earth and ploughed into a cosmetic formulation. According to market analysts Organic Monitor global sales of ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ cosmetics are increasing by over $1 billion a year, and it is forecast Read more