Greenwashing Ingredients: What to Keep Your Eyes Out For
ingredients
sustainability
Greenwashing
What once was a term that defined the misleading buzzwords has now become a buzzword of its own. The reality is, every brand (including us) uses short catch phrases and key words making claims about their products — the issue is not providing the transparency to back them up.
In this blog post, we're going to provide examples of descriptors and visuals you have probably seen before, how we define them, and tips to understanding them in 2022.
Vague way to describe product — if a product is 'natural' it will not contain synthetic derivatives nor byproducts. You won't see us using this word anywhere on our products or website as we feel it is overused and under-explained in our industry.
Biodegradable
What happens after using the product — ingredients are 'biodegradable' if they are 100% earth-derived and 0% synthetic, leaving no synthetic byproducts after use. Packaging is 'biodegradable' if it is sourced entirely from renewable plant fibers and can decompose fully in three to six months.
Non-toxic
Describing the toxicity of ingredients — we define our ingredients as non-toxic because they are hypoallergenic, free from skin-irritants, and do not contain synthetic compounds that could leave behind toxic residue harmful to water ways / aquatic life.
Cruelty-free
Describing the testing of ingredients — we define our ingredients as cruelty-free because we have strong communicative relationships with each of our suppliers and know that every material sourced is never tested on animals. Having a short list of ingredient suppliers gives us the ability to truly understand each of their processes.
Natural
Describing ingredients — ingredients are 'clean' if they are free from potential allergens and skin irritants, never tested on animals, and do not contain any known toxins that could harm waterways / aquatic life after use.
Vegan
Describing ingredients — similar to cruelty-free, ingredients are 'vegan' if no animals or animal products are used when developing or manufacturing formulas, and no animals are tested on.
Chemical-free
Describing ingredient formulation — the term 'chemical' is defined as a compound or substance that has been purified or prepared, especially artificially. While not all chemical substances are to be looked down upon, the general consensus of a product carrying the title of 'chemical-free' means it is free from any synthetic or artificial compounds in its formulation.
Green
Describing a product in its entirety — the term all but defines what it means to greenwash consumers, implying a product is good for the planet in every way. We recommend going a step further in your analysis of the products ingredients and packaging to prove or disprove these claims as simply being advertised as 'green' does not cut it.
"Just put cardboard around it, they'll never know"
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Packaging Copy & Visuals
Corporations are attempting (key word: attempting) to become more creative with greenwashing — hover over our office-inspired meme above to illustrate this.
Behold your eyes on a normal jug of liquid laundry detergent with an outer coating of kraft cardboard to give the impression that it is somehow better for the planet. If you were to cut past the cardboard, you'd find the same high-density polyethylene plastic used for any normal liquid laundry detergent jug.
To successfully avoid this type of misleading advertising: read and research the words (claims, ingredient lists, etc) on the packaging — often times, greenwashing brands will over compensate for the visual (e. g. kraft cardboard) of their product because the copy (e. g. ingredient list) leaves much to be desired.
What do these things have in common?
Floating Animation
they're great, but do not mean a product is great for the 🌎
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Website Content
What do these things have in common?
🌎 Blue and Green Colors
🐋 Pictures of Aquatic Life
🌳 Pictures of Forests, Oceans, etc.
They're all great for designing a website, but shouldn't be the deciding factor for why a product is the right choice. We recommend keeping eye to the brands process (ingredients, packaging, etc.) and the level of transparency provided for it.
The Bottom Line
Ingredient lists shouldn't be hard to find, nor should they be covered up by false advertising. We're all about transparency and only using ingredients that you can understand (and pronounce) — educating and advocating for better. We created these two pages, ingredientsU and Our Responsibility to serve as a benchmark for transparency, to effectively communicate our process, and to inspire our industry peers to do the same.
