{"id":8258,"date":"2020-12-04T10:32:11","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T10:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futurebuild.nl\/?p=8258"},"modified":"2021-04-08T11:55:32","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T10:55:32","slug":"greenwashing-by-justin-peckham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futurebuild.nl\/en\/greenwashing-by-justin-peckham\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Peckham, Accsys Group – ‘Greenwashing’"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Opinion Piece by Justin Peckham, Head of Sales, UK, Ireland, Baltics, India and Portugal
Accsys Group<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Greenwashing<\/strong><\/h2>

04 December 2020<\/p>

You may have heard of the term \u201cgreenwashing\u201d. A play on the term \u201cwhitewashing\u201d, greenwashing is the process of conveying a false impression or providing misleading information about how a company’s products are more environmentally sound. Put simply greenwashing is consumer deception. And with consumers in the UK reportedly spending GBP 41 billion on \u2018eco-friendly\u2019 products, greenwashing is a growing problem. This was highlighted last month by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) with a new probe into misleading environmental claims. The CMA will be actively investigating how products and services claiming to be ‘eco-friendly’ are being marketed, and whether consumers could be being misled. This will be on a global scale \u2013 to action this investigation the CMA has teamed up with the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets as part of a project with the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN).<\/p>

Greenwashing can appear in a multitude of ways. To really understand it I have listed several forms that it can take:<\/p>

1. Environmental Imagery:<\/strong> Use of nature-based images such as trees, animals and even just the colour green on packaging to convey environmental credentials, when the product it is selling is anything but.
2. Labelling:<\/strong> Labels such as \u2018organic\u2019, \u2018eco-friendly\u2019 or \u2018natural\u2019 are easy claims to make, but are they backed up by supporting information that can substantiate these often-spurious claims?
3. Trade-offs:<\/strong> Sometimes the cost of a brand being able to make a claim such as \u2018natural\u2019 means that certain non-environmental trade-offs have been conceded, such as exploitative manufacturing processes or working conditions.
4. Brand claims:<\/strong> Certain brands will try and make claims that sound laudable but are either irrelevant or even bogus. For example, a brand might claim that their product does not contain a harmful chemical, when that chemical is already banned, rendering the claim irrelevant.
5. Category positioning:<\/strong> For example, an oil company marketing their premium petrol brand as the \u2018sustainable choice\u2019. It might be better for the environment than their other economy brand of petrol, but it\u2019s still petrol\u2026<\/p>

Perhaps the most notorious example in recent years is the VW \u2018Clean Diesel\u2019 scandal. The company set out to reverse consumer opinion that diesel fuel was more polluting than petrol and that it actually was responsible for emitting fewer pollutants. This as we now know turned out to be untrue and VW was found guilty of rigging 11 million diesel cars with what have become known as \u2018defeat devices\u2019 \u2013 intended to cheat emissions tests. Some vehicles were emitting pollutants at multiple times the legal limit. As well as suffering enormous reputational damage VW were also made to pay the US government $14.7 billion as a settlement.<\/p>

There are other well documented examples in aviation, fast food and fashion. No industry it seems is immune from this growing trend.
So, it\u2019s clear that greenwashing is a real problem. That\u2019s why I\u2019m so encouraged by the CMA\u2019s announcement. But one element immediately struck me given my role as Accsys Head of Sales for UK and Ireland – the investigation has a special focus on certain industries, and unfortunately construction isn\u2019t one of them. The CMA is specifically looking at: (1) textiles and fashion, (2) travel and transport, and (3) fast-moving consumer goods. It\u2019s perhaps interesting to note that these industries as well as being high profile are also very much consumer facing. It\u2019s clear that the CMA is looking above all to protect consumers from being duped. This however shouldn\u2019t detract from our collective responsibility within the construction industry to shine a light on not only the good, but also the bad and ugly when it comes to brands making sustainability and eco-friendly claims.<\/p>

Given the impact of COVID-19 on the construction industry over the last 10 months, it might be argued that we should now be concentrating our efforts on recovery. But few will have avoided the UK government\u2019s mantra around \u2018building back better\u2019, (a line also used by the Biden camp in the recent presidential elections). This campaign extends to many areas of the UK economy including our health service and social care, but it isn\u2019t hard to see the relevancy of the campaign when it comes to the construction industry. With social housing and green energy and infrastructure as cornerstones to the #buildbackbetter movement, the construction industry is front and centre in terms of delivering the government\u2019s agenda. But whether you think UK government is proposing nothing more than glib rhetoric and nice soundbites, it\u2019s worth reflecting on why the construction industry needs to up its game? Some key statistics:<\/p>