There is a real buzz these days around sustainable products. You have probably heard of the term but maybe you are not sure what it really means. Another term for sustainable products is eco friendly products which may help you to understand all of this a little better.
Companies that create these green products are understandably proud of what they have achieved. Over the years you may have observed specific words on sustainable packaging that bring to your attention that the products are good for the environment.
Words such as “eco-friendly”, “natural”, “sustainable” and “organic” are all commonly used these days. All of us need to play our part when it comes to protecting the environment and purchasing earth friendly products is certainly a good decision to make.
What are Sustainable or Eco-Friendly Products?
There are several aspects to sustainable products. These days there are more and more eco-friendly gifts available to you and you can also look out for eco-friendly packaging sometimes known as “eco packaging”.
At the end of the day, sustainable or eco-friendly products are those that are good for the environment. It is important that you understand what makes a product sustainable and the various regulations that exist around the various sustainability labels. It is essential that you are aware if a product is truly eco-friendly or not.
The problem is that terms such as “sustainable goods”, “ecological products”, “environmentally friendly products” and “green products” are all fairly broad terms. There are no standard definitions in existence so a lot of products can claim to be eco-friendly when they may only be partly.
What Manufacturers of Sustainable Products Use to Support their Claims
When you read about eco-friendly products there are different considerations that a manufacturer will state to support their claim of green manufacturing. You need to be aware of these so that you can make the right decisions when shopping:
Materials used in the product – the main consideration here is that a product consists of recycled materials. Maybe it has recyclable packaging which is sometimes called green packaging. A sustainable product can contain recycled material, consist of material that you can easily recycle or have material which is sourced naturally. There are no toxic chemicals used.
Method of manufacture – eco-friendly brands will sometimes claim that they have a sustainable manufacturing process based on solar power for example. Another environmentally friendly manufacturing method could be that minimal water is consumed in creating the product.
Product usage – eco-friendly companies will create products that encourage consumers to use them in a way that helps the environment. A good example of this is a water bottle that the consumer can use over and over. This is a good alternative to plastic bottles that can be harmful to the environment.
One thing that you can never rely on is that people will always play the part of a green consumer. Just because they have purchased a water bottle that they can use again and again does not mean that they will never buy water in a plastic bottle for example. Product usage is a very difficult factor to measure accurately.
The easiest thing to measure when determining if a product is 100% sustainable and eco-friendly is by looking at the materials used in its manufacture. Eco brands will know if their products consist of 100% recycled materials rather than materials that have not been recycled.
An eco-friendly business may use the term “green” on their labels but you need to be careful about this as this is quite a gray area. There has been quite a bit of controversy over products that are labelled “green” in the past.
Eco-Friendly Products are Big Business
There are a lot of people concerned about the environment and rightly so. Over a decade ago, an expert in the field estimated that sustainable products have the potential to be a $40 billion a year business. In 2014, the Nielsen Company conducted a global survey on consumer reaction to the concept of eco-friendly products.
Through this survey they discovered that around 55% of worldwide consumers would willingly pay extra for sustainable and eco-friendly products. Awareness of the need to protect the environment has grown since then so the numbers are likely to be even higher these days.
Monitoring Sustainable Products Companies
Some of the largest companies that wanted to get their share of the massive eco-friendly products have got into trouble over “green washing”. Green washing is where a business deceptively uses eco-friendly marketing to mislead consumers about their products being truly sustainable and environmentally friendly.
To counter this there has been a stepping up or establishment of certain regulatory bodies to certify that products are eco-friendly. One of the leaders in this field in the United States is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The mission of the EPA is to protect the environment as well as human health. It has oversight of the following:
Energy Star – Energy Star is a program that assesses eco-friendly house products such as refrigerators and computers that consume energy. They are also involved with products that conserve energy such as windows. An entire building can be certified by Energy Star.
Smart Way – the Smart Way program is there to help partners in the supply chain of products to use sustainable methods. This program is responsible for benchmarking and measuring the efficiency of freight transportation.
Safe Choice – the Safe Choice program has the responsibility of approving products and allowing them to use special labels which identify their products as having chemical ingredients that are safe.
Green Good Housekeeping – products deemed to be sustainable and eco-friendly can be awarded the Green Good Housekeeping seal. They have their own laboratory which is dedicated to testing products which companies claim are environmentally friendly.
California Organic Products Act – the California Organic Products Act was introduced in 2003 and stipulates that any cosmetic product labelled as organic must contain a minimum of 70% organic ingredients. Another regulatory program that can help consumers know if products are truly organic is the USDA National Organic Program which is a federal.
FTC Green Guides – the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is also there to protect consumers from green washing and fraudulent marketing of sustainable products. They have created Green Guides that they update regularly for consumer protection.
The FTC is a powerful federal agency that can impose stiff fines on any company that engages in green washing. Reputable eco-friendly companies are fully aware of the power that the FTC has and are very careful to advertise their sustainable products in the correct way.
The Role of Promotional Product Companies
When it comes to the labelling of eco-friendly products there are companies that can provide a variety of products for eco brands to use. All of these materials are designed to inform people that are committed to sustainable consumption to make the right choices.
There are two main trade associations that are there to assist the promotional products companies about eco-friendly products. They are the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) and the Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI). The PPAI offers tips and the ASI has a number of helpful articles.
The certification of promotional product companies is overseen by the Quality Certification Alliance (QCA). They ensure that standards are met in the following areas:
- The safety of products
- The quality of products
- The security of the supply chain
- Environmental stewardship
- Social accountability
To ensure that a company is really committed to caring for the environment, the QCA insists that in order to be accredited by them, a business must have specific standards in place. There are a number of considerations with these standards and there is a white paper from QCA which goes into more detail. As an example, standards must include:
- Procedures that result in quality healthy indoor environmental conditions
- A process that documents to reduction in usage of hazardous substances and toxic waste generation
- A policy which documents energy conservation applied to water and other precious resources
Final Words
What you can conclude from all of this is that governments and companies are working hard to put standards in place for the marketing of sustainable products and the elimination of green washing. Companies now have to include the following with their product descriptions:
- The percentage of renewable or recycled material included in a product
- If a product can be recycled easily or is biodegradable
- If products are manufactured in the US (if you live in the US then you know that less fuel was consumed to get the product to you)
- If a product meets the toxicity guidelines laid down by the FDA
- If a product has the approval of the QCA
All of these things are there to provide you as the consumer with more confidence that you are truly purchasing eco-friendly products.