Like many Australians, Erin Turner wants to play her part in moving towards a more environmentally sensitive world.
But lately, she's been finding it really hard to shop sustainably with confidence – and she's not alone.
"There's a lot of technical information. There's a lot of jargon. And there's a lot of just green colours but no detail, so it's hard to know [what to trust]," the CEO of the Consumer Policy Research Centre (CPRC) says.
Dodgy claims
In late 2022, the CPRC investigated how much greenwashing – the marketing of products as environmentally sustainable when they're not – was happening in Australia on any given day. And the news wasn't great.
The researchers looked into how many green claims an Australian sees on an average day, online, offline, at the shops or on public transport.
They saw an average of 122 green claims across 17 sectors in a 24-hour period, but they also found that only 31 per cent of those claims had any supporting evidence or verification. A lot of them just weren't any good, Turner says.
"I think what businesses can lose sight of is that a dodgy claim, it doesn't just affect their business … there's a real risk that consumers as a whole lose trust in green initiatives from industry," she explains.
"And that is not what we want. What we want is really good quality information that people can put their faith in and they can act on."
So why do some companies slap green labels on their products when there's no substance behind them?
According to Turner, companies know that we shop according to our values, and that around 45 per cent of Australians are often looking for sustainable options when they shop.
"What worries me is that while some businesses are doing great things, some businesses are taking advantage of that interest — there is definitely greenwashing happening in the market," she says.
"One vague claim that really stood out for me was one we saw in our sweep was, 'Our freezers are greener'. Greener than what? The previous model, the competitors? In what way?" she recalls.
"There was a lot of halo claims and really little follow through."
ASIC clamps down
The good news is that companies making false green claims in Australia are beginning to get penalised by corporate regulators.
In the first case of its kind, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has launched proceedings against superannuation provider Mercer.
ASIC has alleged that Mercer Superannuation misled their customers with how they represented their sustainable investment options.
"They've basically said, these are options for people who are deeply committed to sustainability, and that they exclude investments in companies involved in carbon intensive fossil fuels, thermal coal, alcohol production and gambling," Christine Parker, a law professor at the University of Melbourne, tells ABC RN's Law Report.
After investigating these claims, ASIC discovered that Mercer hadn't excluded all those companies. As a result, the regulator was seeking to fine the superannuation company for their false claims.
Regulators in the US and the UK have also taken similar steps to crack down on companies who are greenwashing, Dr Parker says.
Last year, the US financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, fined two financial institutions millions of dollars for making similarly misleading representations.
"I think this is an area where there's going to be a lot more action in the future," she says.
The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) has also recently published research into the extent of greenwashing in Australia.
"The ACCC targeted industries where these kinds of green claims are quite common. So things like clothing, energy, transport, where various claims about environmental credentials are being made," Dr Parker says.
"They looked at 247 business websites and they found that 57 per cent of the claims made by those 247 businesses as concerning, and that's because there are so many vague, unsubstantiated claims."
Stricter standards
Dr Parker would like to see stricter government standards enforced in this area to improve green claims for consumers in the future.
Turner agrees.
"We want to see three things. The first is strong action from regulators, which we're already starting to see. And it's great. But that will only help get rid of the very worst claims in the market," she explains.
The second thing is that 'good' claims need to be defined.
"What do we want companies to be positively making claims about?" she says.
"And then we need to make it possible to get more of those good claims in the market, whether that's through mandatory schemes, setting standards, better definitions — what does recyclable or organic mean, for example. There's lots of pieces of the puzzle here."
It's going to involve government action, voluntary industry action and work by the regulators, she explains.
"We are seeing some really constructive measures over in the EU, for example, a push to better define commonly misused terms … and also, a push to ban just unhelpful terms," Turner says.
"Saying something is 'eco' actually isn't very helpful to a consumer, it can imply a lot more than it means. What we're talking about is consumer information, it needs to be easily understood, it needs to help people compare their options.
"We're not there yet in Australia, but we could be."
RN in your inbox
Get more stories that go beyond the news cycle with our weekly newsletter.
