Illustration by Dave Donald

The Claim

Companies that produce “all natural” deodorants often sell consumers on three things: environmental sustainability, no animal testing, and no artificial colors. But is that the whole story? Often you’ll also find allergens, petrochemicals, lung irritants and hormone disruptors on the product ingredient list—all chemicals that have been linked to cancers.

The Investigation

Propylene glycol, a petrochemical, is often a top ingredient in natural deodorants, and many believe it has no business being there. Even the chemical’s safety information is scary, with this warning: “In case of contact, immediately flush skin with plenty of water. Cover the irritated skin with an emollient. Remove contaminated clothing and shoes … Wash clothing before reuse. Thoroughly clean shoes before reuse. Get medical attention.”

Rosanne Cohen, executive director of non-profit Breast Cancer Action Montreal, has made it a mission to educate herself and others on the many potentially harmful ingredients in our everyday cosmetic products. “Propylene glycol is harmful,” she says. “It’s an ingredient you should definitely stay away from. It absorbs easily into the skin and can damage the heart, liver and nervous system.”

Even so, Cohen says that it’s a personal decision whether or not to toss products. “We believe in the precautionary principle,” she adds, “We know there are ingredients in these products that haven’t been tested for safety. We also don’t know what the effects are of low doses over the long term.”

Other known dangerous chemicals that wind up in deodorants are parabens, aluminum, and perfume. Cohen particularly advises staying away from anything with the ingredient listing “perfume.” She explains that perfumes are considered a trade secret and not regulated. “Make sure the products are fragrance free,” she says which is not the same as simply “unscented.”

The verdict

Studies on the dangers of particular chemicals are ubiquitous. Potential links to anything from Alzheimer’s, to cancer, to autism are repeatedly alleged and disputed, with no consensus in sight. So if you’re going to use cosmetics with questionable ingredients (most products!) use them in moderation.

Until advocates like Cohen succeed in convincing the Canadian government to force manufacturers to properly label products like deodorants (such as a symbol showing the product contains known or suspected carcinogens) the onus will continue to fall to the consumer to determine what is safe and what isn’t. If not using deodorant isn’t an option you’ll consider, then check that labels contain ingredients you know are safe.

Note: Websites like the Cosmetics Database and Breast Cancer Action Montreal  can help you figure out what’s in your products.

Creative Commons photo by Flickr user visualpanic

The Claim

All-natural wood- and corn-based cat litter is a better, greener alternative to traditional clay cat litter. Not only is it biodegradable, but pet owners can flush kitty’s mess down the toilet without getting the guilty conscience that comes with adding a plastic bag per day to already overflowing landfills. But could cat poop pose an even bigger environmental problem when flushed?

The Investigation

Each year, cat owners in the United States alone trash over two million tonnes of clay cat litter, almost all of which is dumped into plastic bags and shipped to landfills. Even worse, clay litter is largely derived from strip mining, a disruptive industrial process that literally strips the earth’s top layer to reach underlying seams of clay. No wonder eco-minded pet owners prefer litter made out of scrap pine or newspaper pellets.

Unfortunately, they may be clearing their conscience prematurely. Sure, flushable litter won’t gunk up your pipes like clay litter might, but the cat feces we flush is contributing to the infection and death of all kinds of sea life.

Cat poop can contain a dangerous parasite called Toxoplasma gondii that causes a disease called toxoplasmosis. Only cats that have come in contact with infected birds and mice will carry the disease, but infection rates for outdoor cats are high. And when we flush infected waste, the parasite threatens ocean and sea life—the parasites are resilient, and typical water purification plants won’t destroy them.

Though researchers are still determining the extent of toxoplasma’s deadly nature, sea otters appear to be vulnerable. Studies in Morro Bay, California, showed that 16 percent of infected otters died of the disease. Dr. Melissa Miller, a senior wildlife veterinarian with the California Department of Fish and Game, says the bulk of the concern, however, isn’t coming from flushable litter. When cats defecate outside, rain can wash the parasite downstream and affect all kinds of aquatic wildlife.

The verdict

If kitty doesn’t go outside, and eats commercial cooked cat food—and not an infected bird or mouse—her poop should be safe to flush. Even so, says Miller, (who owns three cats herself), the best place to toss cat poop is with your weekly garbage. Compostable litter is the best choice in that case—and try compostable garbage bags for good measure.

Shell Canada’s operations in Alberta’s oil sands are clean and green, and simply the victim of nasty rumours spread by environmentalists trying to tar the company’s reputation. That is, if you believe the “six-week Canwest special information feature on climate change, in partnership with Shell Canada.”

Canada’s largest media company teamed up with the oil giant to produce a series of features that showcase how Shell is tackling energy challenges and environmental responsibility. The full-page, feel-good features ran in six Canwest dailies—the National Post, Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal and Vancouver Sun—six Saturdays in a row in January and February 2010. The six-part series also appeared in the Toronto Star as a pullout section.

The series profiles friendly Shell employees who share what motivates them to work in Alberta’s oil sands—Canwest style is to avoid the use of “tar sands”—otherwise known as one of the world’s largest and most destructive industrial projects. There’s the climate change expert (a goateed grandpa clutching walking sticks), the chemist (a longhaired family man who dabbles in acting) and the environmental management systems coordinator (a young woman in a Cowichan sweater who spent countless hours as a child flipping through National Geographic). The features include “myth busters” to clear up so-called misconceptions like the idea that Shell’s oil sands production is too energy-intensive, pollutes the Athabasca River and results in “dirty oil,” among other allegedly tarnishing falsehoods. The only myth, however, is that these features are editorial content. The fact is, they’re paid advertisements for Shell.

While advertorials designed to look like newspaper stories are common, they are usually clearly identified as advertisements as urged by regulatory groups like Advertising Standards Canada. This is essential so readers don’t think the material is subject to the same standards and ethics of journalistic stories: accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and accountability.

Nowhere did the word “advertorial” or “advertising” appear on the Shell ads. Rather, “Canwest special information feature on climate change, in partnership with Shell Canada” was inked across the top of the page, suggesting an editorial partnership between Canwest and Shell, a major newsmaker. Seasoned journalist and outgoing chair of the Ryerson School of Journalism Paul Knox says the wording is euphemistic. “You’re either trying to disguise the advertorials as editorial content or you’re not,” says Knox. “And if you’re not trying to disguise them, what’s to be lost by being reasonably explicit about the terms?”

When asked this question, Canwest director of communications Phyllise Gelfand said: “We feel very strongly that the language was clear enough and that readers will appreciate it.” However, when asked to elaborate on what the language means, she said: “I’m not going to go into semantics with you.”

Gelfand pointed out the information features were presented in a different font, layout and style than the papers’ editorial content. However, the ads ran during the lead-up to the Olympics and during the Games, when many papers were using different layouts. Lifestyle spreads (fashion and homes, for example) also often take more colourful and creative layouts, not unlike the Shell ads. (In the Star, the pullout section was printed on a differently coloured paper.)

Advertorials are often distinguished from editorial copy by not placing a byline on the piece. But in this case, Alberta-based freelancers and Canwest contributors Brian Burton and Shannon Sutherland were credited. Both Burton and Sutherland have covered Shell and the oil industry for Canwest. Burton has 20 years of experience in corporate communications for leading energy corporations, according to his LinkedIn profile, which also states his goal: “to advocate successfully for my clients in the court of public opinion.” For Sutherland’s part, her bio on one magazine site says when she’s not “interrogating industrialists” she’s hanging out with her kids.

Click to enlarge

The advertorials also appeared on Canwest papers’ websites—on homepages as top stories and in the news section, with URLs that looked like those of any other news story. Just like regular news, readers could comment on the “stories.” Canwest refused to respond to allegations the campaign included seeded comments, meaning a slew of positive comments about Shell were posted and negative ones deleted in an effort to further sway public opinion. “I am not aware of this,” said Shell spokesperson Ed Greenberg. “I know you appreciate that anyone, whether or not they work for Shell, is entitled to read any newspaper or magazine they want and form their own opinions from what they read.”

When Sierra Club Executive Director John Bennett spotted the features in the Ottawa Citizen, the former newspaper reporter and ad sales rep was shocked by the one-sided nature of the information. “I could not tell they were ads,” Bennett says. “They looked and read like editorial content.” He only learned the features were ads when he contacted the publisher of the Citizen to complain about the unbalanced coverage. The nonprofit environmental advocacy organization promptly filed a complaint with Advertising Standards Canada. However, because Sierra Club went public by issuing a news release, ASC did not accept the complaint: it’s against the rules for special interest groups to generate publicity for their cause through the complaint process. Sierra Club also filed a complaint with the Ontario Press Council, which has not yet adjudicated the matter. The council’s advertising policy states ads that look like ordinary news stories should be clearly labelled as advertising.

Despite dismissing the complaint, ASC Vice-President of Standards Janet Feasby says advertising designed to look like news stories is of growing concern and ASC will be publishing an advisory on the subject to bring the issue to the attention of advertisers, media, and the public. Feasby points to a recent precedent decision, in which the ASC found a “special information supplement” in a newspaper that extolled the virtues of Neuragen, a homeopathic product, was presented in a manner that concealed the advertiser’s commercial intent. “It was clear to council that it was advertising, not information.” Like the Shell features, an ad for the company was included at the bottom of the page.

ASC can force advertisers and publications to remove ads, but often it’s too late: the ads have already run and the damage has been done. The only loser is the reader, who may have read and wrongly interpreted the ad as a news story. Papers that blur the line between advertorial and news content risk their credibility and their relationship with their audience. “The problem with these advertorial exercises is they muddy the waters and you’re placing obstacles in the way of a reader who’s trying to figure out, ‘What is my interest here, and what’s behind what I’m being told?’” says Knox, who teaches media ethics at Ryerson. “It has the potential to undermine the trust that your audience has in you and that’s fatal.”

The seriousness of this matter is magnified when the subject of the advertorial is a controversial one, such as climate change. “[These ads] play on public complacency, they play on the public’s hopes that the environment is being protected,” explained the Sierra Club’s Bennett. “One of the reasons we have so much difficulty advancing the environmental agenda in the face of overwhelming public support is because people can’t imagine there are governments or companies not trying to do the best they can. When you get misleading advertising like this, you play to that inborn need for people to believe that things are being looked after.” You also play into the inborn need people have to trust the media to provide them with honest coverage.

While Shell insists it produced the features to clear up “misconceptions” about climate change and its environmental commitment, the company has a track record for producing misleading, greenwashed advertising. In 2008, the Advertising Standards Authority in the U.K. denounced a Shell newspaper ad that described tar sands projects as sustainable, saying it breached rules on substantiation, truthfulness, and environmental claims. A year earlier, the ASA found another Shell ad guilty of greenwashing—this one featuring refinery chimneys emitting flowers. Still, Shell defends its ads.

“We were getting feedback from Canadians that all they were seeing and hearing was one-sided information [about climate change], so [the feature campaign] was done to try to balance the discussion,” said Greenberg. “Don’t you think that’s fair?” Readers?

Bamboo fabric is the perfect solution for the eco-chic shopper. The plant grows fast, with little water, few pesticides or fertilizers, and produces 30 percent more oxygen than trees. But does all that really mean guilt-free fashion—or is bamboo just a savvy marketing trick?

The Investigation

Last year, the Competition Bureau of Canada clamped down on the increasing number of textile dealers marketing bamboo clothing to nature-loving fashionistas. Under new regulations, manufacturers and retailers must label bamboo clothing according to how it was created. Since most bamboo fibres are made into a pulp using sodium hydroxide (a corrosive chemical base used in a variety of manufacturing processes) before being spun into yarn, this means a tag change to either “viscose from bamboo” or “bamboo rayon.” Lest a shopper still be fooled, such clothing can also no longer be marketed as eco-friendly or natural.

Tagreed Boules, a senior competition law officer with the Bureau, says the new rules were designed to alert consumers that bamboo clothing is not as pure as some retailers like them to believe. Both rayon and viscose fabrics indicate a chemical process, he adds, and are a more accurate description of the material used to make bamboo clothing.

Boules says the agency is taking an increased interest in companies that advertise products as environmentally friendly. As Boules explains: “Environmental claims must be substantiated. If a product claims to be biodegradable, is it the product itself or the container? How long would it take to biodegrade? This information must be readily available.”

The Verdict

Using bamboo as a fibre to make clothing does have advantages over other plants—it grows faster than cotton and uses less water and pesticides—but sodium hydroxide isn’t exactly “green.” If it burns on contact and is harmful when inhaled, it has no business in the green aisle. The good news: research is currently underway to develop a process less reliant on harsh chemicals.

Are reusable menstrual cups really better for the environment than tampons and pads?

The Claim

DivaCup is a reusable, silicone menstrual cup that claims to be an “environmentally responsible” product that is the “most clean and convenient method of feminine hygiene protection.” But how green can the manmade silicone product be?

The Investigation

DivaCup, like other brands of reusable menstrual cups, works by collecting menstrual flow in a small, internally placed cup. This cup is emptied and washed out throughout a woman’s cycle, then sterilized by boiling and put away for next month. According to the makers of DivaCup, which is the only Health Canada approved reusable menstrual cup, one cup will last a woman an entire year (and some users say a cup can be used for much longer), and that, they argue, is one reason why this product is so environmentally friendly.

The company’s clearly onto something. Each year, 12 billion conventional pads and 7 million tampons, made out of plastics, rayon, viscose, and cotton, are dumped into the North American environment. These products have been bleached with chlorine, which releases carcinogenic dioxins into the environment, and most use non-organic cotton, which has been saturated in pesticides and insecticides. Cotton is also considered to be the world’s “thirstiest crop,” requiring six pints of water to grow just one little bud.

While DivaCup is made from silicone, the same synthetic substance found in everything from cosmetics to cars, silicone looks pretty green compared to what goes into conventional menstrual products.

Dr. Michael Brook, a silicone expert at McMaster University, says that because silicone is derived from silica, a type of sand, it will slowly degrade back to that material. “The safety record of silicones is exemplary, and unlike many materials used in commerce, there is a lot of data available to permit such a statement to be made.”

The Verdict:

There’s no “greenwashing” going on here; DivaCup lives up to its claims and truly is a green alternative to conventional feminine hygiene products. While there might be an initial yuck factor, for most women, a reusable menstrual cup is an environmentally and economically healthy choice when dealing with their once-a-month friend.

98% of so-called "green" products really aren't. Creative Commons photo by fotdmike.

It seems like everything has “gone green” these days. From retailers to celebrities, airlines to hotels, banks to even runway fashion, the environment is sexy in the marketplace for the first time. But is all the publicity really helping Mother Nature? When consumers are being “greeenwashed” in their attempt to fit into a petite size footprint, there is a serious problem-the status quo.

Greenwashing, like whitewashing, is masks inconvenient truths about the sustainability of products and services. By appearing to be environmentally sensitive, companies are earning billions in “green” revenue. Meanwhile, consumers are misled in their attempts to live green, unknowingly contributing further to planetary destruction.

“It’s greenwashing when a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be ‘green,’ through advertising and marketing, than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact,” says the Greenwashing Index, a web site that rates the authenticity of companies’ and products’ eco-friendliness.

And the sad reality is most green products out there are bogus. Exactly 98% of products that claim green labels in the market place are greenwashed, says a report by the TerraChoice Environmental Marketing in April. The company says there are seven eco-sins that companies commit, including: misleading consumers about the environmental benefits of a product or the practices of a company; hidden trade offs, for example, energy efficiency versus the production of hazardous chemicals; and vagueness, such as using terms like “green,” “eco-friendly,” and “natural.” Does a naturally-occurring substance like formaldehyde conjure up ideas of eco-consciousness for you?

One example of a greenwashing company is Shell. Shell Canada is currently providing grant money for up to $100,000 towards four major initiatives that improve and preserve the Canadian environment, and $10,000 grants to grassroots, action-oriented projects. And in its ad campaigns, Shell promotes itself as sustainable and eco-friendly. Is this true? Is Shell becoming a business leader in our ecologically pivotal time?

I think not. Shell is spending billions to be the lead company in the business of dirty and unconventional oil with the Alberta Tar Sands. That helps to extend our dependency on fossil fuels and contributes to the most destructive and greenhouse gas-intensive method of oil extraction on earth. The Tar Sands produces 40 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually for Canada through this project. Such projects make it impossible for us to meet any significant global climate agreement, like Kyoto, and probably Copenhagen.

However, there is an immune response to all this consumer corruption. Today, there are a number of groups that work as third parties in environmental labelling, such as EcoLogo, Energy Star or Green Seal. There are science-based marketing firms that assist in transforming companies to the ‘green path,’ like TerraChoice. And there are numerous references and indexes for the every-day consumer in verifying the genuine nature of a product, like Greenpeace’s Electronics Report and GreenwashingIndex.com.

But with this surge of green-labelling – including some companies that mimic third-party environmental certifications, such as HP’s Eco Highlights products – it’s no wonder why so many of us are still in the dark about greenwashing. Perhaps, as Treehugger.com argues, we need a universal eco-labelling system to make it easier for consumers to really go green.

Or perhaps we need to get our heads out of our greenwashing asses. Making change involves getting smarter. We cannot keep expecting someone else to do it for us. Being informed as a consumer and human being in our choices is our responsibility. Relying on the other guys is what got us into the mess we are in. Like brainwashing, let’s take back our brains back – and leave the washing for cleaning our hybrid cars with biodegradable products.

[image source]

Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist and This Magazine’s resident eco-blogger. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors, and is the eco-correspondent to MTV News Canada.

Illustration by Dave Donald

Marketers will slap the “green” label on just about anything. Don’t be fooled

I have no qualms with calling myself a conscious consumer. If there’s a label, I read it. If there’s not, I ask. I like to know what’s in the products I buy, where they come from, and who made them. I care about the price, sure, but I also care about the environmental and social impacts of the global supply chain that brought them from the field or factory to my shopping cart. I don’t want my jeans sewn by a 12-year-old girl, an oldgrowth tree felled so I can blow my nose in Kleenex-y comfort, or my tomatoes shipped to my plate from halfway around the world.

And, these days, there’s a good chance you don’t either. A quarter of American adults are what Hugh Hough calls “awakening consumers.” The president of Green Team, a New York-based communications and advertising agency that specializes in environmental issues, says shoppers who realize they can effect change through their everyday purchases are wielding more and more power in the marketplace. With billions of dollars of ethical consumer spending up for grabs, it’s not surprising some of the world’s biggest companies are scrambling to get a piece of the eco-friendly pie.

But how can consumers sort legitimate green claims from false advertising — making sure their choices have an impact — given the number of companies that boast eco-friendly products?

Take Procter & Gamble, for example. The consumer-products giant plans to spend US$20 billion over the next five years developing and marketing eco-friendly products. Household staples such as Charmin toilet paper and Bounty paper towels now come with more sheets per roll to reduce waste. A truly eco-friendly choice would be, of course, to simply wipe up the spill with an old rag. But you can’t sell that for $1.99.

P&G isn’t the only company reaching for our green dollars: I can buy recycled gift paper and eco-beauty products at Pistachio, a new retail offering from Heather Reisman of Indigo Books fame; I can light my home with energy produced by “clean coal”; and my grocery store tempts me with something new and organic (and usually vacuum-packaged) on the shelf every week. Everything from cars to coffee to nuclear power is being peddled as green consumer choices.

Of course, any environmentalist will tell you that coal isn’t clean and nuclear power isn’t green. So why are they being sold as such? Because they can.

It’s called greenwashing, and it’s a major obstacle for eco-conscious consumers. TerraChoice Environmental Marketing Inc. defines greenwashing as the act of misleading consumers about the environmental practises of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.

Its 2007 study of more than 1,000 consumer products found all but a handful guilty of overplaying their environmental benefits in one of several “sins” of greenwashing — making irrelevant claims; being vague, offering no proof; or other forms of deception. Many ordinary products were simply relabelled with environmentally friendly-sounding slogans.

Chevrolet is one of my personal favourites. In an industry that has emitted more carbon out of its collective tailpipe than perhaps any other, the company’s 2009 marketing tagline is “gas-friendly to gas-free.” The vehicles in its latest lineup are the very same (minus the much-anticipated Volt electric car) it sold in the past, except back then most of their ads touted their speed and powerful engines — hardly eco-friendly.

Much of today’s green marketing is more about branding than anything brand new. So what’s a conscious consumer to do? Enviro-marketing experts say the best thing is to reward companies that are transparent. Mountain Equipment Co-op, for example, recently published the locations of its offshore suppliers, among the first clothiers in Canada to do so. Similarly, Timberland puts a “nutritional label” on its boxes of shoes, spelling out the company’s environmental, labour, and community impact statistics. Regulation is coming, but slowly.

Companies in Canada face new guidelines for marketing environmental messages recently released by the Competition Bureau and the Canadian Standards Association. While the guidelines are voluntary, violators accused of false advertising face fines or removal of their products from store shelves. Certified eco-labelling agencies, such as EcoLogo and Green Seal, are also good measures of authenticity.

In the end, the best way to vote with your dollars for a more sustainable world is simply to buy less. After all, buying more stuff, even if it’s “green” stuff, is still more stuff. Stuff that costs the planet resources to make, to ship, to clean, to store, and ultimately to dispose of. And you don’t need a label to know that.