For CNN
LONDON, England (CNN) -- You might want to go green, but how do you know what you're buying is truly ethical? Greenwash -- the ignoble art of misleading consumers about a product's true green worth -- is on the rise. But thanks to the work of increasingly vigilant regulators, some of the more curious and downright spurious claims are being weeded out.
TerraChoice's "six sins of greenwashing" include vagueness, irrelevance and outright fibbing.
TerraChoice, a Canadian environmental marketing agency, has devised a guide for consumers which they hope goes some way to eradicating greenwash. They've called it "the six sins of greenwashing."
Scott McDougall, President and CEO of TerraChoice told CNN: "The regulatory initiatives in Canada, the U.S., Australia and, I suspect, Europe are rather impenetrable bureaucratic documents, and are not very useful to the average consumer. So we developed it as a tool that would be memorable and useful to consumers."
The sins include "Vagueness" -- terms like 100 percent natural and earth-friendly which don't really mean anything, "Hidden Trade Off" -- is a product truly sustainable? And the "Lesser of Two Evils" -- trying to make consumers feel green about products that have dubious environmental benefit.
Set up in 1995 as part of the Canadian Federal Government's program against greenwash, TerraChoice examines the entire life cycle of a product and the science of environmental claims with a view to awarding Canada's environmental certification mark, the EcoLogo. "Our position is to help genuine environmental leadership win market share," McDougall said.
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