3 Ways To Spot Greenwashing In Cleaning Products
Have you been a victim of greenwashing? In this post, I’m sharing three ways to spot and avoid greenwashing by cleaning brands advertising themselves as natural, plastic-free, or eco-friendly.
Tell me I’m not the only one fed up with ‘eco-friendly’ cleaning brands greenwashing.
You wouldn’t believe how many companies that market themselves as ‘green’ or ‘plastic-free’ have refused to disclose their ingredients to me.
“It’s a trade secret!” …Is a line I’m sick of hearing.
It shouldn’t be this hard to work out what your washing powder is made from.
It should be a legal requirement to list all ingredients, including perfume.
It’s not like I’m planning on spraying my kitchen cleaner on my neck (then again some of these Zoflora-loving Hinch worshippers do bizarre things over artificial fragrances).
Instead, here I am, researching chemistry and emailing green companies to get basic information about the products I use around my children.
If you want to reduce the time and energy you spend working out if brands are true to their word and worth spending money on then keep reading.
Today I’m sharing three ways to help you work out if a cleaning business is greenwashing or not, including examples of popular brands that have been caught.
COMING UP
What is greenwashing?
How are cleaning product companies greenwashing?
Three ways to spot greenwashing in cleaning products
What is greenwashing?
Greenwashing is a marketing scam and cleaning products are one of the hardest areas to spot it in because of the lack of transparency in the industry.
Greenwashing is ethically and morally wrong because the whole purpose is to manipulate customers into buying their products under false pretences.
It is the reason I do not recommend using supermarket “eco” cleaning products - no supermarket is ethical, they are just trying to make a profit from their conscious customers.
If they genuinely cared about their impact, they would remove the plastic bottles full of polluting cleaning products from their shelves.
How are cleaning product companies greenwashing?
Greenwashing happens in every industry but cleaning products seem to get away with it more than others.
Cleaning products use lots of ingredients and have complex formulas that are hard for the average person to understand.
Companies rarely tell you:
What ingredients each product contains
Where the ingredients are sourced (e.g. fossil fuels, palm oil)
If they contain animal-derived ingredients
What the artificial fragrances are made from
Other problems that lead to greenwashing in cleaning products are:
Lack of regulation
For a long time, the words ‘natural’ and ‘eco-friendly’ were not regulated so any brand could use them, even if it wasn’t true.
In a turn of events, new regulations have started coming into place to tackle greenwashing in Europe.
This doesn’t stop brands from trying to mislead customers, but at least they are starting to hold brands accountable.
Secret ingredients
Many brands are allowed to call their products “eco-friendly” because they are better than the alternatives in the same industry.
The problem is, they often have secret ingredients which means they still might not align with your values.
While there may be plenty of good things about the product, such as plastic-free packaging, or cruelty-free certification, you can’t assume what is inside is good for our health or the planet.
Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing if a brand’s “plant-based” and “non-toxic” claims are true because there is no way of finding out what is inside.
Palm oil
Almost every cleaning product company uses palm oil or palm derivatives in its products. There are only a small number of ethical brands that guarantee no palm oil at all.
Sadly, the RSPO is failing to make palm oil sustainable and deforestation is not slowing down.
Palm oil is a complex issue, and it is better to have RSPO-certified palm oil than not (which is why I always include which brands have palm oil certifications in my product investigations).
Try to remember that most ethical businesses are pretty small and the amount of palm oil derivatives they use pales in comparison to large corporations.
Switching to a sustainable cleaning brand that contains palm oil derivatives is still a much better option than using cleaning products by P&G or Asda (Walmart).
Three ways to spot greenwashing in cleaning products
Do you want to avoid greenwashing in your cleaning products? Ask yourself the following questions about the company making the products:
How many of its products are sustainable?
Has the brand got your attention by distracting you from its bigger issues?
What makes you think this product is sustainable?
How many of its products are sustainable?
Cleaning companies that are greenwashing will often spend a lot of money advertising one eco-friendly product range whilst still producing and earning most of their profits from harmful products.
One way to spot them is to look at all the products it sells.
Big corporations hire people who are extremely good at marketing.
At first, you might think, “They’re making bottles from recycled plastic now - that’s good!”
But when you look at the number of other products they produce, it paints a different story.
For example, in 2022, Persil made an advert saying its laundry detergent (which contains 50% recycled plastic) was “kinder to the planet” and it got banned.
Persil is owned by Unilever which also owns Domestos, Surf, Cif, OMO, Dove, and Comfort,
Unilever pledged to cut its virgin plastic use in half, yet in 2022 it still produced 698,000 tonnes of plastic packaging.
This was an increase from 610,000 tonnes in 2017 and proves it is not even close to reducing its plastic footprint or following through with its “plastic pledge.”
Until they address the environmental pollution they produce, brands owned by Unilever shouldn’t be making any green claims.
In a nutshell, when deciding to buy a cleaning product, look up the rest of the products the brand sells and ask yourself if they’re all eco-friendly.
2. Has the brand got your attention by distracting you?
One of the easiest ways for a brand to mislead you into thinking they are more sustainable than they are is by distracting you.
If you’re thinking of buying a product because you’ve seen an ad about the brand’s sustainability (include influencers in this), you need to ask yourself if they are distracting you from the harm they are doing.
Procter & Gamble (P&G), who own Ariel, Fairy, Lenor, Bold, Daz, Flash, Febreze and Viakal is excellent at distracting the public (and its shareholders) from its inaction on its environmental destruction.
One example is back in 2017 when P&G made a *limited edition* Fairy liquid from recycled plastic and 10% ocean plastic to help educate consumers on protecting the planet.
They paid many cleaning influencers to spread the word about their sustainability efforts while spreading the message that customers can help the planet by washing at colder temperatures.
If you have a look at P&G’s website, you’ll see that they produce 712,000 metric tons of plastic each year.
Instead of taking accountability for the massive amount of plastic pollution and harmful chemicals they produce with their wide range of products, they just tried to push responsibility onto consumers.
Plastic and fossil fuel production is the main contributor to the climate change crisis, so telling customers to wash their dishes in colder water to help the planet is super hypocritical.
If you want to know if a cleaning brand is distracting you from its harmful actions using green marketing, take a look at its sustainability reports and policies.
You should specifically, look for:
How much plastic packaging they are producing each year
Its carbon footprint
It’s palm oil policy (most brands still use palm oil derivatives) - how much does it produce and where is it sourced from?
If you can’t find a policy, this is a bad sign and it’s worth contacting the brand to ask for one.
You should take pledges and targets for the distant future with a pinch of salt as most corporations don’t follow through on these promises.
You can also check out: The Ethical Shopping Guide and Ethical Consumer Magazine (which has a reasonably priced paywall on some of its content) for more information about a brand’s sustainability.
3. What makes you think this product is sustainable?
We are often drawn to a product because of its marketing or visual appearance.
Packaging that is green or has nature imagery, may make you feel like the product is natural, however, this isn’t always true.
Last year, Unilever became the target of an ongoing CMA greenwashing investigation.
One of the areas targeted is the imagery that Unilever uses on its cleaning and household products, such as green packaging and plants, which could make it appear more environmentally friendly than it actually is.
Look at the aesthetic of the two cleaning products in the above image. They’re both green and covered in leaves or flowers.
…Do you want to know what’s inside?
The main ingredient in Comfort is ditallowoylethyl hydroxyethylmonium methosulfate which is another name for chemically altered animal fat.
Instead of informing customers this product isn’t vegan, they make it appear more natural by pasting flowers all over it.
The second product, by Cif, is a disinfectant that says “100% naturally sourced cleaning agent” on the front.
The word “natural” makes you feel like the product is non-toxic for your health, and kind to nature, right?!
Well, the Cif product page lists the active ingredient as Benzalkonium Chloride (BAC).
This is a pesticide that has been linked to antibiotic resistance.
Because large cleaning brands have advertised using disinfectants (containing BAC) in our homes daily, it has made some bacteria become resistant to it.
As the use of disinfectants is increasing, BAC is now considered an emerging environmental contaminant.
Benzalkonium Chloride has been found in ground, surface water, soil, and household dust in 13 countries. This is concerning because it can affect the hormones and behaviour of aquatic life.
It can also trigger asthma. Occupational use of BAC has also been linked to the development of asthma.
So while this bottle of Cif Anti-bac and Shine Multi-Purpose looks eco-friendly and non-toxic, it might actually be the opposite.
To sum this section up, if you want to avoid falling for greenwashing, don’t assume that earthy-coloured packaging makes a product sustainable.
Instead, look for evidence that backs up the claims:
What makes this product “natural?”
Does it have any green certifications?
Has it listed its ingredients for you to see?
Has it got a policy on toxic chemicals and palm oil?
Have you been a victim of greenwashing before? Let me know in the comments below.
Hopefully, this blog post helped you become more aware of the ways brands get away with greenwashing so you can avoid it in future.
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