Ethical Corporation’s recent online debate, sponsored by InterfaceFLOR, on greenwash and environmental claims, was led by Ramon Arratia, director of sustainability for Europe at InterfaceFLOR, and Kristian Steele, a senior engineer at Arup.

A large online audience participated in the live online debate and raised a number of searching questions around four key topics:

• the growth of greenwash
• green labels
• life cycle analysis
• environmental product declarations.

The rise of greenwash

Kristian Steele opened the debate by noting that although consumers are becoming increasingly informed on green issues, suppliers and label schemes simultaneously provide new information meaning that levels of understanding do not keep pace.

Debate participants noted that brands claim that consumers cannot differentiate between products. And the problem of greenwash is not helped by a common lack of guidance and regulation for those participating in green labelling. Added to this PR firms work on ethical communications without really understanding the intricacies, which often results in some dubious corporate claims.

To combat greenwash, NGOs provide a valuable policing function, particularly in sectors with multistakeholder initiatives that provide regulation. The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority recently enhanced “protection for consumers” with updated advertising codes regarding environmental claims and life cycle analysis. To eliminate greenwash effectively, industry bodies should develop sector guidelines that develop regulations to encourage members to report transparently and consistently. Challenges will remain until these elements change.

Green labels

The next subject for debate was the complexity and multiplicity of green labels. Currently, they are poorly understood with no regulation. There is also a considerable gap between green labels and full environmental product declarations – and so there is scope for other certification schemes to be developed and fill the middle ground.

Companies that want to label products should be mindful of not overwhelming consumers. Tesco, for example, has now shifted its focus to working directly with suppliers rather than extending its programme of product labelling.

So, what are the best methods for to ensure labelling programmes are effective?

One solution is third party verification. In addition, Ramon Arratia suggested environmental information could be presented in a similar way to nutritional facts, but that the focus must be on the product rather than the company as in many instances the majority of a product’s impacts lie in its raw materials. In the future, perhaps environmental labels and life cycle analyses will encompass social issues.

And, eventually technology will mean that providing information by physical labelling could be replaced by swiping mobile phones against product bar codes.

Just as with green advertising there is no regulation on labelling and, as Kristian Steele pointed out “until we have labelling frameworks, confusion will remain”.

Life cycle analysis

The flexibility of a life cycle analysis (LCA) is one of its strengths, but it is also a weakness when it comes to the need for consistency and comparative reporting. Making every company (including SMEs) perform an LCA with thousands of products in a range is not always possible. Streamlined LCAs, however, could just mean shortcuts and greenwash.

“Cradle to cradle” impacts in an LCA are valuable and important for procurement professionals and business-to-business sellers. Zero waste policies and competition between supermarkets in product engineering are driving focus, especially in business-to-consumer LCAs.

Unfortunately, LCAs are often used retrospectively. Companies set parameters then engage third party consultants to do a perfect LCA. In fact it should always be done following agreed product category rules, with priorities being stipulated to the design team at the very start of the product’s life.

A debate participant suggested that LCAs should relate to product categories rather than individual brands, partly due to the costs and efforts involved. At the same time, however, consumers want to know the impacts of the products they buy, to keep a low carbon footprint and use their purchasing power to influence corporate decisions. This creates a healthy competition between brands to be low impact.

Environmental product declarations

The debate’s final theme was the value in and methods of creating an environmental product declaration (EPD), the end result of an LCA.

In France there is a process underway to establish EPDs on all consumer products from January 1 2011. This in turn will affect all companies exporting to France.

Ramon Arratia has experience with EPDs in Europe. He says that benefits of EPDs include the ability to see all the raw materials and bottom line impact results. The value of publishing an EPD is not that consumers decide which products to buy in the shop but that the information enables smart regulations, such as a variable VAT rate based on carbon.

Summary

Kristian Steele summed up the debate, calling for wider industry participation, familiarisation with the best approach, better training, standardisation, and government clarity of policy and regulation.

InterfaceFlor Europe has committed to have all products covered with EPD before 2012.
For more, see: www.interfaceflorcutthefluff.com

For more information and to see full text of the debate go to www.ethicalcorp.com/livedebate

For the text of our 2009 Live Debate with Vodafone on the role of mobile in a low carbon economy, have a look at: http://www.ethicalcorp.com/livedebate1