Greener pastures
New eco-friendly products suit consumers, and companies are paying attention

You could say green is the new black. With concerns about the environment and global warming capturing the collective consciousness, more consumers are clamoring for eco-friendly and green products.

Evidence of this growing demand is everywhere.

Sales of hybrid cars in the United States jumped from just 20,000 in 2001 to an estimated 345,000 in 2007. Sales of green building products are expected to reach $4.7 billion in 2011, up from $2.2 billion in 2006. Organic food sales more than doubled from 2001, reaching $16.7 billion in 2006.

A survey by GfK Roper Consulting found that 87 percent of respondents expressed some concern about the environment, and 79 percent said a company’s environmental practices influence their buying decisions.

Businesses, large and small, are taking notice.

Wal-Mart, the retail giant, along with such companies as Apple, Nike and others, is taking very public steps to improve its environmental practices and provide more eco-friendly products.

Wal-Mart has created a large-scale sustainability program that includes working with laundry detergent companies to use more concentrated formulas, resulting in smaller packaging and less waste.

Nike has pledged to reduce its carbon emissions as well as redesign its products to reduce footwear waste by 17 percent and reduce packaging waste by 30 percent. Dole Food Co. has announced plans to make its banana and pineapple supply chain carbon-neutral. Enterprise Rent-A-Car said it’s planning to have a fleet of fuel-efficient and alternative-fuel vehicles in the near future.

Anna Clark, president of Earthpeople, which helps businesses improve their environmental practices, said companies are simply responding to Adam Smith’s theory of the invisible hand of the market.

“In America, consumers join this movement by using the free-market system to vote with their dollars,” she said. “People want safe, nontoxic products, and they also want a chance to make a difference. It’s that simple.”

But there’s more to the green trend than the simple premise of companies giving customers what they want, said Joel Makower, executive editor of Greenbiz.com, a Web site that covers the growing green business market.

He said consumers’ eco- buying habits have often been more word than deed. What’s different now is that companies are making the changes not merely because of customer sentiment. The real reason companies are eliminating waste or reducing toxins is because it makes economic sense—saving money and improving the bottom line. Makower said if companies use less packaging, for instance, they pay less for raw materials, less for disposal and less in staff resources.

“This is not just marketing. Companies are changing the way they do business,” he said. “They are actually doing more walking than talking.”

Still, there is a large dose of green chatter out there that is difficult for consumers to cut through.

A recent study by Ipsos Reid, a market research company, found that 70 percent of respondents called the green designation “just a marketing tactic.” In addition, 44 percent said they would not pay higher prices for so-called green products.

Part of the reluctance to buy green stems from perceived “greenwashing,” the trumping up by companies of the environmental benefits of a particular product.

A study by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing found that of 1,018 products that made environmental claims, all but one made claims that were either “demonstrably false” or that risked being misleading. According to TerraChoice, among the six sins of greenwashing are vagueness, irrelevance and no proof.

For instance, when a company says that a product is chemical-free, it is considered a sin of vagueness because nothing is made without chemicals. “Water is a chemical. All plants, animals and humans are made of chemicals, as are all of our products,” the TerraChoice study said.

The term all-natural is also misleading, because there are plenty of things such as arsenic, uranium and mercury that are natural but hardly healthy. Adding to the confusion is that — unlike the term organic, which is highly regulated and can only be used for products that meet strict criteria — the word “natural” is not regulated at all.

“Words like ‘all-natural’ and ‘nontoxic’ are virtually meaningless,” Makower said.

Many companies also promote benefits that are not unique, according to TerraChoice. A good example is chlorofluorocarbons, or CFC. The problem is that chlorofluorocarbons have been illegal for about 30 years, so products such as oven cleaners, shaving gels and window cleaners that claim to be CFC-free are just like all the others.

Experts say wading through all the supposed eco-friendly labeling can be a challenge, especially because there are so many ways to be green.

“If you drink from the green fire hose, you are going to get it coming out of your nose, your ears. You are going to get blasted,” said Ted Ning, executive director of Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability, or LOHAS, a nonprofit group that promotes eco-friendly practices.

The key, he said, is to take it slow and pick one area to concentrate on, whether it be buying organics, using reusable shopping bags or buying a hybrid vehicle.

Because buying environmentally friendly products can be so confusing, Doug Farquhar and Allison Huke started a business called buygreen.com last July. They investigate a variety of products and point people to those that are most closely aligned with their most pressing environmental concerns.

Farquhar said that as it stands now, it is just too much work for average consumers to wade through all the green claims to determine what’s best for them. Not only do consumers have to studiously read labels, they also need to spend time researching a company’s larger environmental practices.

“People need to take a crawl, walk, run approach to buying green,” he said.