I enjoyed the Greenwashing report very much. It is a good guideline. The report nicely outlines precarious claims that marketers can easily make while trying to communicate their green market commitment. As a consumer, it should be my job to question green claims or any other claim for that matter and this provides a good way to judge how I discern the value of green products. Sure a cynical person may decide this article supports not going green but they are not supporting green for other reasons- not just because of this article. Another idea for a report is to show all the wonderful steps companies have taken to be greener, eg. More energy efficient facilities, manufacturing transparency, replacing ingredients with more "natural" ones. I’m sure we’ll see some high percentages there too.

You're right -- TerraChoice should be more transparent, and show us the supporting evidence.

But claims like "This is the greenest product ever made" are not harmless hyperbole. Consumers are already suspicious that green claims are just a marketing gimmick; claims that are not provable, that are "just hype," reinforce that impression. And are people really likely to go home and do research on which aspects of a company's green claim are real, or are they just going to assume the whole thing is BS? I fear it's the latter.

For a lot of reasons, green products and services have a higher credibility bar than many others, and every company making green claims should realize that. If you don't want to be accused of greenwashing, there's a simple solution: can the exaggeration and meaningless puffery.

I think the TerraChoice Greenwashing report is a good reminder that consumers need to think critically about labels, but I think it’s time to deepen the research and the discussion.

As I understand it, TerraChoice manages the Canadian EcoLogo program. It would be great to see a truly independent research firm conduct a similar study, with full transparency.

On another note, I think it’s also time to really peel back eco-labels and look at whether or not each one is backed by a scientifically rigorous and publicly available standard. The report points out the issue of hidden trade-offs (really important), but how can I as a consumer assess that? At the end of the day, I want to know that the product I buy is truly reducing environmental impact.

TerraChoice is not itself free of self-serving marketing. The "sin of vagueness" is illustrated (by Terra Choice) by the use of the term "natural", which is correctly identified as being meaningless in many contexts. Yet Terra Choice has granted EcoLogos to cleaning products (examples Attitude and Bio-Source)that prominently feature the claim of "natural". Is Terra Choice judging their own certified products "offside" in their product survey in the marketplace?

TerraChoice should show evidence that they find so that consumers can make better, educated choices. By naming the companies that are "greenwashing" and what "sin" they have committed along with their findings would really help. It would also help hold companies accountable so that they are less likely to greenwash and put more power behind the consumer. If they are unwiling to reveal their findings how are we supposed to take them seriously rather than seeing a big it-picking giant?

The only point in this article that I agree with is that TerraChoice should have named names. The bar is hardly set to high. Toxicity is everywhere and its about time that companies stopped poisoning us all.