Should we look at green products in isolation from the rest of the company’s activities and the other products it makes? Does it matter if a company makes a green product without greening all its products and activities?

Many suppliers have a suite of activities or products that they offer. This may include some green products and some not so green or it may include entire activities that are either contentious or just ‘not green’. Can we ignore these products and activities in the search for the perfect green product?

One of the motivations of green purchasing is to reward suppliers able to supply green products, the idea being that this will encourage the market to develop greener and greener products etc.

Imagine your shock and horror when it turns out your preferred supplier is green over here but dirty or contentious over there? Nothing illegal but just not the green or sustainable according to your point of view? For example, is it ok to buy solar energy (supporting renewable energy) from a company which also works in the nuclear energy field? There is nothing illegal about nuclear energy, it’s just I doubt there are many people who support both solar and nuclear at the same time.

But how should we take into account the contentious issues? If the virgin paper fibre sourced from native forest is contentious, can we just buy the recycled paper option from the same company and move on? Or is the recycled paper option, which ticks all the boxes in your criteria, still tainted by the company having major stakes in selling contentious virgin fibre paper? Should we reward companies for doing the right thing or punish them for doing wrong?

Taking this approach to the extreme, do we only consider fuel efficient vehicles from car companies that don’t also make gas guzzlers? Or take a look at the least efficient products in the range, before considering the most efficient?

The approach has merit since it would ramp up the pressure on the companies if they weren’t greening all their activities and products. Suppliers would not only have to make green products but would have to avoid making non-green products at the same time. No more token green products out one door while the churn out the run of the mill products out the other.

Then I had a thought that brought me back to reality – would this approach make it virtually impossible to find a product that meets both criteria? In many categories I suppose the answer is yes. But that doesn’t mean we can’t start asking the question.

While I am not so angry this week, we keep coming up against the same problem here at ECO-Buy. I am beginning to wonder if you can have reverse greenwash.

I think one of the issues with greenwash is that buyers sometimes want to believe that a product is green so they tend not to question it and believe the marketing hype about how green it is – even when it’s not.

Well reverse greenwash is the opposite. Products that represent a real environmental improvement sometimes struggle in the market due to entrenched buying behaviour.

We hear the same thing time after time from suppliers:

“They look straight past our product and just buy what they have always bought.”

“We trialled recycled material on a footpath and now they want to wait 5 years to see how it performs before doing anything more. I will be reaching retirement age by then!”

“It’s not us that have to innovate, it’s our customers.”

The success of some genuine green products relies more on the attitude change of the buyers than the technical performance of the product.

ECO-Buy ran a roads and footpaths forum in 2010 and the ’risk averse’ buyer culture was seen as one of the main barriers to increasing the uptake of recycled materials. Three years later we are hearing the same thing. This is despite more testing of the products, and no evidence that using recycled materials in roads and footpaths has resulted in any low quality roads.

So unlike greenwash, here we have a product which is proven to be green but buyers are wary of buying it.

I am not saying engineers should abandon their standards and start using ‘innovative’ materials to build bridges that fall down or make bumpy roads. But there is certainly a need to look at what the barriers are to using new and innovative products and materials and see if resistance is justified.

It’s not the price either – there are plenty of examples where green products that can actually save organisations money still suffer from the same fate. Worse, we have heard reports that contractors inflate prices to cover for the fact they are unfamiliar with products and to ‘cover the risk’. But what risk?

All is not lost.

ECO-Buy is working with suppliers and organisations right now to develop ways around this problem. Understanding the barriers, working out information needs to address them, and being innovative in the way the products are marketed.

I reckon that some of the proven green products have a harder time in the market than the non- proven greenwash type products. There is a lesson there.

This is why I call it the opposite of greenwash.

With greenwash, sellers appeal to the irrational and emotional side of buyers – hoping they will just believe what the seller tells them. The opposite is that despite being given factual information, the buyer refuses to accept it or discounts it.

Hopefully, in my life time, ECO-Buy will be able to help suppliers of genuinely green products overcome these barriers so that the truly green products are successful in the market and it is the greenwashed products that are ignored!

It’s not often I say ‘seller beware’ but here is a good example about how not understanding the product you are selling can leave you in hot water.

For at least the last five years, bamboo has been promoted as the miracle green product. Everything from bamboo flooring to bamboo plates and cutlery, as well paper, its all come across my desk.  Amazingly there is even bamboo socks, towels and underwear.

The marketing pitch promotes the sustainability of bamboo; it grows fast, doesn’t need pesticides, is abundant, and has properties which make it ideal for flooring (high hardness) and fabric (absorbent, antibacterial).

I have never really understood how bamboo can be turned into socks and towels. Wouldn’t it be scratchy? But I am assured by numerous suppliers that this fluffy fabric really is bamboo fibre.

Well it turns out turns that this bamboo fibre is actually rayon fibre. Calling it bamboo fibre is a misnomer – greenwash if you like.  Rayon is a man-made fibre which can be made using pretty much any cellulosic (plant sourced) material including wood. While the source material (wood or bamboo) might be natural, the process of making it is not. Furthermore none of the inherent properties in bamboo are found in the rayon fibre – including so called antibacterial properties.

So while growing bamboo may be sustainable (we are not discussing that here, but personally I would like to see forest certified bamboo), making Rayon from bamboo involves a toxic chemical process. It’s not what you would call green.  Picture lots of caustic soda, and carbon disulphide just to get started.

There are plenty of suppliers out there promoting bamboo fibre but it is getting risky. The FTC (Fair Trade Commission) in the US has recently come down hard on companies promoting rayon derived from bamboo as bamboo fibre. Several major companies have received fines totally over $1.5m in the US over their bamboo fibre claims.The FTC’s view is:

“The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, wants you to know that the soft “bamboo” fabrics on the market today are rayon. They are made using toxic chemicals in a process that releases pollutants into the air. Extracting bamboo fibers is expensive and time-consuming, and textiles made just from bamboo fiber don’t feel silky smooth.”

(I think the FTC agrees that if socks and underwear were genuine bamboo fibre they would be scratchy!)

In some ways this issue is less about buyer beware and more about ‘seller beware’. Somewhere in the supply chain these companies were told this product is bamboo fibre and they set up their marketing around it. By not fully understanding risks in their supply chain, suppliers risks huge fines, not to mention their reputation, and damage to the whole sustainable product market (all the usual harm associated with greenwash).  

So while the buyer should beware, in the end they can still wear their socks and use their fluffy towel whether it is bamboo or rayon. But for suppliers, it’s serious.

Not fully understanding your product and its supply chain can be a real headache.

I was in a discussion about fleet management and the relevance of the Green Vehicle Guide the other day and it opened a can of worms.

It’s these fancy turbo diesels with ridiculously good fuel economy becoming so popular that is at the heart of the matter.

Fuel economy means low CO2 emissions, so plenty of organisations, including the Vic Government use CO2 emissions or fuel economy as their basis for choosing greenness. This tends to favour diesels. Fuel economy also leads to lower running costs so it’s a very attractive measure for organisations.

Funny thing is the Green Vehicle Guide does not rate these diesel powered vehicles very highly. So what’s going on?

The Green Vehicle Guide rating system is based on an equal mix of Greenhouse Rating (CO2 emissions) and Air Pollutant Rating (carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter). Diesel powered vehicles get penalised for high air pollutants , typically rating a 6 of 10 on the guide for air pollutants, versus 7.5 for equivalent petrol.

As a result, there are no diesel vehicles in the top 20 of the Green Vehicle Guide (these are all electric, hybrid or petrol). I struggled to find any 5-star diesel vehicles despite there being quite a range of 5-star vehicles overall. In fact Holden and Ford’s large sedans are available in 5 stars courtesy of being LPG powered.

This all sounds reasonable. Diesel exhausts are nasty. This year the World Health Organisation elevated the carcinogenic status of diesel exhausts (particulate matter) to the highest level. They are now considered a known rather than probable carcinogen. Good Environmental Choice NZ have even added criteria for their office activities standard which gives preference to petrol over diesel in urban areas.

But at the same time, diesel engines are getting cleaner (as are all engines in line with stricter standards). So much so that the Green Vehicle Guide itself is considering scrapping their Air Pollutant Rating based on the assumption that all new vehicles meet mandatory emissions standards. The focus will instead be placed on CO2 emissions, fuel consumption and emission certification level (e.g. Euro 4).

Interesting. We are going in two directions at once on this (do that in a car and see what happens!).

On the one hand we are saying that all vehicles create the same levels of emissions (based on compliance with the same standards) while on the other we are also raising the level of concern over diesel emissions.

In the Green Vehicle Guide discussion paper it says that even the toughest standards (which Australia will have in force by 2018) allow higher emissions for diesels than for petrol. In the meantime, petrol engines will meet significantly higher emissions standards than their diesel counterparts across a range of emission types. So it’s not really fair to assume diesels are as clean as petrol yet.

So can we have our cake and eat it too? The fuel economy and low CO2 emissions of diesel without the air pollution?

It’s getting there, 2018, but in the meantime perhaps the NZ advice is on the mark. When considering fleet purchases, understand that it’s not all about CO2 emissions. Other factors come into play – especially air quality.

With diesel emissions being more of an issue in congested urban areas, consider whether a diesel vehicle is the best choice for city use. Outside urban areas, where fuel efficiency is more the issue, diesel is fine. Also remember that emissions standards for diesels are improving so make sure that that the vehicle meets Euro 5 or higher.

And if you ride a bike make sure you check if that big truck in front of you is Euro 5 before you breathe in the black cloud of exhaust.

Sometimes products go beyond greenwash – they are downright …hogwash.

Greenwash seems fairly innocent in comparison – a homemade eco-label here, calling your product ‘natural’ there, pictures of dolphins and frogs on your website to make you seem sustainable.

But hogwash is far worse.

Hogwash is where a product or service offers great promise, often based on radical ‘new’ technology, but it is in fact ineffective, an expensive way of achieving very little, or is even downright dangerous. Possibly all three.  Usually, Hogwash products seem like a very attractive solution to a very compelling problem or fear.

Typical hogwash habitat includes green cleaning (fear of chemicals), energy management (cost of energy) and green cleaning (so common that it’s worth repeating). (BTW if you want to clean without chemicals, use a microfibre cloth and some water.)

Over the years I have been presented with a range of hogwash products promising fantastic performance with no negative impacts. They follow a similar pattern:

• No third party evidence or relevant certification that the product works or has an environmental benefit (I say relevant since they may present irrelevant certification – posing as relevant)
• Heaps of testimonials from happy customers.
• Apparently magical properties (too good to be true?) – which if true would have a massive positive impact on the environment.
• The magical properties are not easily explained or understood.

Generally what I find is that when I have consulted technical experts they are either baffled and/or laugh at the so called technology. In fact the more technical the expert, the more baffled they become. I have seen this several times with different ‘technologies’. Perhaps they are ‘beyond science’?

I like to take an open minded approach to new technology but I am naturally sceptical. I understand that anything new can be initially met with scepticism, and that vested interests would try prevent some radical new technologies being successful. However ECO-Find is what stands between buyers getting seriously ripped off by firms that use marketing hype over substance to promote their unproved products.

So what do we do when we are presented with a potential hogwash product? We try to help. Possibly because I am not a technical expert on everything (no-one can be), I focus on getting third-party evidence. My view is that if the product is as effective as they say, it will change the world (clothes washing without laundry detergent, cleaning without chemicals etc – think of the savings in water, chemicals etc). So the best thing the supplier can do is prove the technology, get it tested properly by a reputable organisation and stop trying to pull the wool over the buyers eyes (ok hogs don’t have wool). 

They will make millions and the world will be a healthier place.

Next time I will talk about a particular hogwash product that could damage your health (nobody breathe).

I just found out today. Maybe I am behind the times. The debate is over. Genetically modified crops are sustainable. Looks like the critics were wrong.

Sarcasm aside, at ECO-Buy we spend a lot of time analysing and applying various standards. We use standards to assess suppliers’ claims and verify their environmental and social performance. We depend on standards, as do many purchasers when looking to identify the most sustainable option. So what makes a good, credible standard?

Well you might have read (on our newsletter here) that the ISEAL Alliance has developed a draft set of credibility principles designed to ensure a standard is just that. As they say, the aim of a credible sustainability standard should be to bring about positive social, environmental and economic impacts.

Of course, it also needs to gain the trust of buyers. When the dust settles, the standard or eco-label needs to meet the expectations of the buyer in terms of environmental and social outcomes.

Sounds easy!

Well it’s not easy, there are multiple stakeholders: industry, NGOs, buyers, suppliers etc. who have to support the standard, and at the same time end up with a meaningful outcome. There is no point setting a standard too high for suppliers to meet, just as there as it also can’t be set so low that it’s meaningless - an ecolabel that doesn’t drive change is a waste of time.  

Gaining buyer confidence is so important. If the requirements of the standard don’t meet the expectations of the buyer, they will lose trust in the label or view it as ‘greenwash’.

Which brings me back to GMOs. Love them or hate them, there are sustainability standards out there now accepting genetically modified crops as inputs. When developing standards there are a lot of complex issues to consider, so maybe GMOs just sort of snuck in there. But I do find it intriguing that the ‘Principles and Criteria’ for the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels allows for pretty much unrestrained use of genetically modified crop inputs, provided “relevant national or international guidelines, laws and agreements, crop-specific stewardship systems, and local and community coexistence agreements or understandings” are followed (criterion 11b).

While I am not taking a stance for or against GMOs, you have to ask: does this standard meet the expectations of its intended market? If I surveyed buyers in the market for sustainable biofuel, would they be happy to support GM farming?

Or, would they like me, be surprised to learn that GMO inputs are now available in a sustainability standard near you?

I have just spent a very interesting afternoon looking at the eco-labels standards for toilet paper and other ‘personal sanitation items’.

While ECO-Buy is supportive of third party eco-labels, sometimes when you read the details you can’t help but wonder if they are adding any value. Looks like in some cases buyers need to treat these eco-labels as a starting point, rather than an end in themselves.

 ECO-Buy favours recycled content over virgin fibre for these products, but also recognises international eco-labels as well.

I found the eco-labels for virgin content paper to have holes in them as wide as a bus. I looked at several labels and each one had clauses which allowed pretty much standard product in. Given the amount of certified fibre available globally, I would imagine that virtually any respectable manufacturer could get one of these labels.

It’s what I call certified business as usual. Manufacturers can produce products carrying eco-labels using readily available fibre from a wide range of sources.

The eco-labels I looked at are the Nordic Ecolabel, EU flower and Environmental Choice New Zealand.

The Nordic Ecolabel does not specify which forestry standards it allows, only what requirements they must have. Most forestry standards would meet these requirements, including those not supported by environmental groups.

The Environmental Choice New Zealand label allows mixed fibre that includes FSC (which is supported by environmental groups) or equivalent. Unfortunately the list of equivalent standards includes those that don’t have the support of environmental groups in the same way as FSC does.

The EU flower requires only 50% of virgin fibre to be from a third party certified fibre source, that meets the requirements outlined in a document dated 1998. That is so last century! Surely standards would have become a little tougher since then. So you could end up with 50% from an uncertified source – orang-utan habitat for example.

An eco-label is not of any value unless it raises the bar. So eco-labels need to have standards that are higher than business as usual. From what I have seen of these standards, they appear to be certified business as usual – too accommodating to be of any real value. Perhaps the eco-labels are just keeping out the really bad stuff?

What’s the solution?  Well, I have to dig deeper, consider eco-labels to be just the starting point for further investigation. It just goes to show that constant dialogue with suppliers is required to ensure products really are sustainable.

And avoid non eco-labelled products like the plague or just buy recycled content in the first place…which is where this all started.

Well it looks like green purchasing has had a bit of a win over the weekend.

Apple have decided to rejoin EPEAT after decided they had “made a mistake”.

While this is great news in itself, it appears to have come about due to some strong green purchasing policies.

According to BBC commentary on the decision, San Francisco city’s green purchasing policies helped influence Apple’s decision.  The City has a policy of only purchasing EPEAT rated products and may have stopped buying Apple products if they were no longer rated.

Apparantly other significant customers include University of California were also considering whether to suspend Apple purchases.

Apple has said it looks forward to working with EPEAT as the standard ‘evolves’. It’s too early to say what this means. I can see the need for standards to stay abreast of technology and manufacturing developments, but just hope that evolve doesn’t mean weaken.

Apple’s decision to withdraw all of its products from EPEAT certification has implications for green procurment and raises a couple of question. 

For those that may not be familiar with it, EPEAT is a global certification scheme for electronic products – particularly computers, laptops and  monitors.  What is great about it is that it covers a range of criteria including elimination of toxic substances, energy use and how easily the product can be recycled. Products can gain bronze, silver, or gold certification. Its describes itself as the definitive global registry for greener electronics and I have no reason not to agree with this.

Plenty of organisational purchasers including government use EPEAT in purchasing criteria. ECO-Buy supports organisations mandating minimum EPEAT standards. For example the Australian Government ICT Sustainability Plan specifies EPEAT.  

So what does Apple pulling out of EPEAT mean for policies such as these? If they are true to their policies, organisations that currently specify EPEAT would not be able to buy Apple products. For example plenty of schools buy Apple products so they would have to look at their policies and maybe find a different supplier. Alternatively they will just buy Apple product regardless – so in that sense Apple will be dictating to the market what matters. In this case not the environment apparently.

I am also interested in the reason Apple has pulled out of EPEAT. Apparently their design direction isn’t compatible with EPEAT. I take this to mean that they are tossing aside design for recycling – which is part of the EPEAT criteria, because it’s not compatible with making their products sleek. Presumably their products can be tossed aside at their end of their life but not recycled. If this is the case you would have to agree that it’s a huge step backwards for the environment, and for resource efficiency (given the amount of rare and precious materials used in these modern wiz bang devices).

So I have to agree with EPEAT that it’s disappointing that Apple have pulled out.

It remains to be seen:

Will buyers adjust their purchasing policies?

Will they stop buying Apple products?

Will EPEAT win Apple back?

Everyone it seems is worried about which paper they should buy. We regularly receive calls asking for our advice on the topic from the largest corporates to the smallest one-man shows and everyone in between.

I have been flat out like a printing press over the last month  just on events about paper. I was on the panel of the Paper Wars debates in Melbourne and Sydney, went on a forest tour with VicForests, took part in a paper roundtable, contributed to a paper webinar, and attended a one day workshop on timber certification.

Why?

Well the why is easy, ECO-Buy’s position is one of the ‘honest broker’. We try to find the reality that lies between the diverse and often opposing views. We constantly learn more about the issues, look for the facts behind the claims, listen to both sides and still find what we thought was true to be challenged further down the track!

What did I learn?

A number of things. Firstly native forestry creates a strong emotional response. On the forest tour, we pulled up alongside a beautiful example of native forest. As everyone got their cameras out to take photos of the beautiful forest, the VicForest guy informed us this area would be harvested (clear felled) in the next month or so. You could hear the sounds of hearts sinking.

Secondly both ‘sides’ appear to have valid arguments. During the forest tour I was impressed with the professionalism of the foresters. They explained the process that means old trees are retained, habitat for the Leadbeaters possum identified and protected, how they protect gullies and streams and how they walk through the coup to make these evaluations among other things. They seem quite proud of their work. This was all quite convincing if you thought about it objectively. Especially if you put the amount of forestry (5000 Ha) into perspective compared to all the other impacts on the land from farming, urban sprawl, roads etc. each year.

The environment groups also have valid arguments. They can show many examples which seem to indicate poor forest management, such as old trees not being protected, or breaches of forest management rules, and have scientists backing their calls for an end to clear felling native forests. There is also logic in their suggestion that paper be made using existing blue gum plantations in western Victoria, which are currently surplus to requirements and likely to be bulldozed.

Thirdly it’s a very polarised debate. Like certain football teams (or their supporters perhaps?). 

Which leads to the overall problem: a breakdown of trust.

The timber certification workshop talked a lot about trust. For any environmental certification to work, buyers need to trust the certification. At the moment the trust is lacking. It is too easy for ENGO’s to show examples of forestry practices which undermine the trust, and if you ask the average concerned paper buyer, the strategy is working.

It is in the best interests of those dependent on native forestry to have an independent assessment on native forestry harvesting and whether it is adequately protecting endangered species and other values. This would need to include, but also go beyond, whether the existing forestry management scheme is being adhered to, and whether in itself it is adequate to protect the forests. This would help build the trust that is currently lacking and leading to the very difficult decisions in green procurement we so frequently get asked about. 

In the meantime, we can reduce our own contribution to the issue by reducing the amount of paper we use or buying paper with recycled content.