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It can be difficult finding the greenest products— is “environmentally friendly” better than “organic” or “green”? Many companies have stepped in with their own green label systems to help ease the confusion, but with so many labels, what does it all mean?
The Federal Trade Commission is in charge of making sure marketing claims are not too misleading, and they’re revising their green labeling guidelines’ for the first time in ten years’to address the evolving terminology around environmental concerns. In the meantime, confusion still reigns because there are well over 100 labels touting green qualities, with more coming on line seemingly every day.
Greenerchoices.org is a great resource for cutting through the hype, with a comprehensive directory of labels covering everything from “low VOC” to “bird friendly,” and a report card that tells you what if anything the label really means.
Here are some labels you might find in your local grocery, with straight definitions to match:
USDA Organic: Requires a minimum percentage of ingredients to be raised without pesticides. Not specific to sustainable farming practices, it focuses on minimizing the use of petroleum-based pesticides and fertilizers (read: industrial agriculture can be organic).
Fair Trade Certified: This verifiable label means what it says fair prices to the farmer, direct financial relationship with the farmer, co-op, or union, no forced child labor, reduced pesticides and sustainable farming practices.
Biodegradable: This label is meaningless as a general claim it can’t be verified and it doesn’t have consistent meaning across different kinds of products. There is no independent organization behind this term, so there are no standards to refer to. There has been public input into what this term means, but it has not yet coalesced into an independent certifying body.
Green: Completely meaningless there is no standard definition for this term or what it means for different kinds of products.
Environmentally Friendly: Ditto.
