Greenwashing 101: When Green Isn’t Clean

What Exactly Is Greenwashing?

Greenwashing is when a brand claims to be eco-friendly—without making any real, impactful changes to their practices. As more customers try to be environmentally conscious, brands hope that advertising green practices will improve their image and increase sales.

But by creating the illusion of sustainability through a variety of techniques, greenwashing deceives well-intentioned consumers and creates a real obstacle to tackling issues like climate change.

How Is It Harmful?

Beyond wrongly deceiving a consumer, greenwashing can have detrimental effects on the environment. According to the United Nations (UN), “to limit climate change and preserve a livable planet, emissions need to be cut nearly in half by 2030 and reduced to net zero by 2050.”

Greenwashing is hindering our progress, making it difficult for consumers to find real eco-friendly products and taking business away from brands who are actually making strides in sustainable practices.

Greenwashing Tactics to Watch Out For:

There are a number of tactics that brands use in this deceptive practice, including:

• Being vague or intentionally misleading. According to the UN, brands will often apply labels like ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘green,’ because these terms “do not have standard definitions and can be easily interpreted.” Consumers will purchase a product advertised as eco-friendly, unaware that the brand has no evidence to back up this claim.

• Exaggerating. Even when brands do make small changes or meet the minimum requirements of sustainability, they’ll imply that these changes make a much larger difference than they actually do.

• Directing attention to one environmental practice, to distract from other impacts. For example, a brand might claim to be sustainable because of their reduced waste, but not mention their carbon emissions or where they source their material. By focusing consumer attention on one positive thing, they can ignore their other environmental impacts.

• Lying. Sometimes, a brand will make claims that are beyond misleading—they’re simply false. For instance, the Carbon Collective points out that a brand “may claim to have reduced its carbon emissions by 50%, but the actual reduction is only 10%.”

Avoiding Greenwashing

As a consumer, being aware of greenwashing tactics is an essential first step in avoiding this harmful practice. If you can, look past the green symbol when brands claim they are eco-friendly: try researching to find out if they can support these claims. Do they have a proven track record of sustainability, or just catchy marketing?

When looking for brands to support, keep an eye out for ones that take accountability for their actions. If they’re transparent about their practices, that’s a green flag.

Transparency and Sustainability at Emily Jones NYC

Here at Emily Jones—a certified eco-friendly brand—greenwashing goes against our core values of true sustainability and authenticity. We encourage everyone to look for transparency and genuine green practices, not just a green label.

Our products and packaging are created from recycled materials to reduce waste, and manufactured in the U.S. If you want to learn more about our environmentally conscious practices, check out our sustainability page.