Loblaw’s takes a swipe at ecolabels

An article in yesterday’s Globe and Mail outlined green options available to consumers in the household goods section. The article quickly devolved into a price comparison shopping exercise and general rant about how expensive green products are and how there’s a lack of standards for what’s green.

In the article Loblaw’s, which obviously prefers to retain control over whats green rather than submit itself to independent verification and expertise, took a swipe at ecolabels:

“There are a variety of different certifying bodies and no consistency in terms of what makes one product more environmentally sound than another,” says Claudio Gemmiti, Loblaw Brands vice-president responsible for President’s Choice Green products.

The Globe is right to complain about higher prices for green products. Consumers shouldn’t have to pay extra for making a green choice. Home Depot works hard to keep its eco-options prices in sync with its non-eco-options. If more retailers made the same commitment it would go a long way to driving eco-markets.

While Loblaw’s is right that there are a variety of certification bodies (more than 300 in fact). It’s a little bold to say there is no consistency between them. Even if the labels aren’t fully consistent, I’d rather trust them than some dude at Loblaw’s.

It’s also pretty weak for the journalist to hit up Loblaw’s for a quote on ecolabels. That’s like asking GM their opinion on higher fuel efficiency standards. Well gee kids, GM says there’s no consistency in fuel emissions standards across the US and Canada so I guess we shouldn’t have them.

Instead of pandering to Loblaw’s the Globe should have asked them why they can’t match Home Depot’s commitment to using credible ecolabels while using their retail power to pressure suppliers to bring down prices for eco-friendly products.

The Global Ecolabelling Network, ISEAL, and other ecolabel networks should also be all over articles like this.

2 Comments » | Tags: news, standards
Posted by Jacob on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 | Permalink |

Show us your Stats

So what is a label anyway?

Case in point: CO2 Stats. You can ‘green your website’ by downloading their gadget…and many have already. As such, it’s acting as an eco-label for websites. But before we decide if it’s a label, it would be good to know, at the very least:

- Where are the “Stats” coming from?

- How do we know that emissions are offset: where, when, how?

We are also wondering: does a green web just mean calculating then offsetting your individual CO2 emissions when online? I, like Madonna, am still pretty sure I am living in a material world and toxics and electronic waste are the underbelly of the web.

Even if we give the green light to the “green=CO2 offset” equation, at the very least we should know what’s being offset and how.

Come on guys, tell us your story….even if you are not up to revealing the secret sauce of your algorithm, a few more deets wouldn’t go astray.

No Comments » | Tags: carbon, green web, offsets, transparency
Posted by Anastasia on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 | Permalink |

Blue Flag to Durban: No Trumps Here.

“You’re NOT Fired!” - Durban South Africa is angry because Blue Flag just pulled eco-certifications from several of its beaches. They claim the local coordinator is pulling the certification because she is in cahoots with local advocacy groups.

Blue Flag shot back: “We trust our people in Durban, no we can’t fly out there because we don’t have any money.” Boo.

Does Blue Flag have an independent audit? According to our database the answer is yes, but there’s no mention of it in this article. This is why its important to have independent verification of your standards. Church and State don’t belong together.

Here’s the full juicy story…

No Comments » | Tags: tourism
Posted by Jacob on Monday, March 31st, 2008 | Permalink |

Friends of the Sea Asks YOU: What is an eco-fishery?

Friend of the Sea has just launched an online poll:

Can certified sustainable seafood originate from fisheries targeting overexploited or depleted stocks?

You can vote here.

According to Friend of the Sea, the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations) ‘Guidelines for the Ecolabelling of fish and fishery products from marine capture fisheries’ indicate among the “minimum substantive requirements and criteria for ecolabels” (art.30) that the “stock under consideration is not overfished”.

Friend of the Sea says its criteria requires categorically that in order for a product to be ecolabelled as sustainable it must originate from a stock which is not overexploited according to the updated information from FAO, regional fishery bodies or national marine research Institutes.

No Comments » | Tags: fisheries
Posted by Jacob on Monday, March 31st, 2008 | Permalink |

Aussie Regulator Reacts to Greenwash.

An Australian Magazine called Choice recently did a random survey of 70 grocery products and found more than 200 green messages on their packaging. Responding quickly, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC), the government watchdog, published a document last month called Green Marketing And The Trade Practices Act.

It warns business and industry that they can be taken to court by the ACCC, consumers and competitors for making false and misleading claims about the greenness of their products.

Here’s the substance on their warning:

1. Manufacturers should avoid using particularly vague terms in their labelling such as green, environmentally friendly, environmentally safe, recyclable or carbon neutral unless they can substantiate what they mean.
2. Explain which part of the product’s cycle is environmentally beneficial: its extraction, transportation, manufacturing, use, packaging or disposal.
3. Don’t use unqualified pictures that may mislead the consumer about the contents or the intentions of the product.
4. Don’t overstate the scientific significance of a product if the evidence is inconclusive, under consideration or disputed.

5. Don’t make irrelevant claims - for example, that a product isn’t tested on animals when it wouldn’t be, anyway.

No Comments » | Tags: standards
Posted by Jacob on Monday, March 31st, 2008 | Permalink |

“Hypocrisy is the first step to real change”
You spin me right round baby, right round

We are spinning out on spin these days.

“Yes, but I think greenwashing is good. Hypocrisy is the first step to real change.” says Hunter Lovins in reply to the question “is there more greenwashing now that green is popular?” in the recent Sustainable Industries Journal.

OK, interesting idea. Um, why?

“If a company makes a claim about something, then you can hold them accountable”

The logic is that once the company has made a claim, in order to avoid being called greenwashers, they will try to back up that claim with real action.”And then as they make steps to bring their performance in line with what they’re marketing, they actually see the benefit of that improved performance, and it becomes something they integrate into their business for real.” says Lovins.
Do all efforts at greening necessarily lead to business benefits?

Greenwashing still seems kind of risky as a marketing strategy. Very hard to bring consumers back with another campaign that says “this time we mean it”! Now that would be seen as hypocrisy, unless of course, we take another spin.

1 Comment » | Tags:
Posted by Anastasia on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 | Permalink |

Heads up: Good Wood Watch launches
If a tree falls on the internet...

Greenpeace, Sierra Club of Canada – BC Chapter, West Coast Environmental Law and Wildsight launched Good Wood Watch this month — with their eyes on VANOC and the 2010 Olympics.

“The website, GoodWoodWatch.ca, was launched… to ensure environmentally and socially responsible Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified wood is included in venue construction.”

No Comments » | Tags: fsc
Posted by Trevor on Monday, February 25th, 2008 | Permalink |

Fairtrade fortnight roundup
Going bananas.

Fairtrade fortnight — designed to raise awareness of Fairtrade products — kicked off this week with some good news from the Fairtrade Foundation:

• sale of Fairtrade goods rose 81% in 2007 to reach £493m
• bananas accounted for more sales than any other Fairtrade item, at £150m
• Fairtrade cotton sales saw the biggest rise, up 660% to nearly £35m.

(via BBC News: Fairtrade product sales rise 81%)

And more sweet news — Tate & Lyle, a sugar producer in the UK, is in the process of becoming Fairtrade certified across all of its sugar products — making it the largest UK firm to be Fairtrade certified.

No Comments » | Tags: fairtrade, food
Posted by Trevor on Monday, February 25th, 2008 | Permalink |

Carbon Offset Verification Starts

Climatebiz just announced that Green-e is expanding into certification for carbon offsets next week.

Aw nuts. I was just about to launch a green offset programme and use it to buy myself a Prius.

No Comments » | Tags: carbon
Posted by Jacob on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 | Permalink |

Wishful Thinking Hurts the Planet
Progess? But I like going to fancy meetings!

In a classic example of a multi-stakholder process harming the environment, it looks like plans to develop additional product lines for the EU ecolabel are being stymied by the inability of those setting the standards to agree on what they should be.

Consumer advocate Jim Murray hit the nail on the head - “a more realistic understanding of consumers as they actually are, and not as we would wish they were.”

Queue applause. Why is that so hard?

No Comments » | Tags: europe, standards
Posted by Jacob on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 | Permalink |