How to Spot a Sustainable Brand from a Greenwashing One
As we approach Earth Month, it’s important to brush up on our skills of spotting greenwashing, which I’ve outlined in this video. But how do we spot a sustainable brand? What are the criteria there? Let’s chat about it today!
What is sustainable?
I like the way that UCLA’s department of sustainability puts it:
“Sustainable practices support ecological, human, and economic health and vitality. Sustainability presumes that resources are finite, and should be used conservatively and wisely with a view to long-term priorities and consequences of the ways in which resources are used. In simplest terms, sustainability is about our children and our grandchildren, and the world we will leave them.”
Essentially, we often live unsustainably as an entire human race, but also individually. We consume too much, pollute too much, and if we keep it up, we will run out of certain resources. We can deplete the earth faster than it can replenish, and pollute faster than it sequesters the pollutants. This reminds me of Earth Overshoot day which you can learn more about here.
Oxford dictionary defines sustainable as “able to be maintained at a certain rate or level.” This can be applied to how we consume Earth’s resources and also to our own lives! More on this soon.
What makes a brand sustainable?
First, no brand is going to be 100% perfect. In the same way that you and I can’t be perfect, neither can these brands. But these brands should be held to a higher standard than we are, since they are the ones making the products for us to choose from to consume or not consume. So, if a brand meets 99% of these criteria, but not all of them, that’s still an excellent brand to support! Even a brand that is 5% sustainable is better than shopping from a brand that is 0% sustainable.
In my research, I also couldn’t find any hard-set rules for what makes a brand sustainable. So I’ve compiled my own list of eco-friendly attributes that I would love for brands to incorporate. The more they do, the more sustainable they are! Feel free to chime in with your criteria below.
Eco-friendly materials and ingredients
This is probably the first thing that comes to mind for most folks when they are seeking out a sustainable brand or product. I’m sure most of us know by now to avoid plastic and opt for natural ingredients and materials like bamboo, hemp, cotton, and so forth. This is a great sign that the brand cares about the planet! Though this is just the surface, because plenty of unsustainable brands also use materials like cotton and paper in their products. Once you spot that they are using eco-friendly materials, keep looking to see if they meet other criteria!
Eco-friendly materials are those that have the least impact on the planet in terms of production, but also at the end of life. I explain more about which material is the best in this video.
This also looks like brands choosing natural vs artificial dyes and inks, opting for organic materials to avoid pesticide pollution, using recycled materials to prevent the creation of new materials, and much more. There are so many routes to take for eco-friendly materials, so maybe it’s a shorter list to talk about unsustainable materials: plastic (especially new plastic), any newly harvested material is worse than recycled, and anything that has a really high carbon footprint.
Waste reduction
How does the brand handle its waste? Do they strive to avoid the landfill? Do they reuse as much as they can in-house? These are great questions to ask. A brand that comes to mind here (and I’m sure they’ll come up again) is Plaine Products. They check the box above for using eco-friendly ingredients, but they also throw away very little in the production phase. They reuse any boxes to ship out their products, as well as packing paper. On top of this, they encourage their customers to do the same by providing you with a shipping label to return bottles to them in the same box you received them!
Other ways brands and companies may reduce their waste are by composting any food waste, repurposing deadstock fabric into a new garment, recycling what cannot be used, opting for reusable materials, and similar things of that nature.
3rd-party certifications
One of the best ways to spot a sustainable brand is to see what certifications it has. Why? Well, any brand can call itself sustainable. But when another company takes a look from the outside in, there shouldn’t be any bias when they deem a brand sustainable or not, since they are not part of that company. Some of these certifications are B-Corp, 1% For the Planet, TUV/BPI, GOTS, and more. I break down what these certifications and others mean in this video.
Though this is not the end-all be-all of a sustainable brand:
This is expensive! Many start-ups or small brands simply cannot afford to go through this audit process, even if they are extremely sustainable. A brand that comes to mind here is Reworked by Sav. Sav is a one-woman show who makes upcycled, wearable art from 100% secondhand materials. She reuses shipping boxes and lets nothing go to waste. But again, she’s a one-woman small business who cannot afford the price tag of these certifications. That does not make her brand unsustainable!
Some of these certifications have been under scrutiny lately as they are letting some known unsustainable brands slip by their audit system and use their certifications. Yikes. If you’d like a full post on this, let me know.
So while this is a great way to rule a brand sustainable (ish) or not at a quick glance, please continue to check for other criteria, too.
Production
Of course, the product itself matters as is the end of its life (more on that soon), but how was that product made? Was it made with green energy? Was it made locally to you? Did the brand focus on reducing or eliminating water and air pollution? And many more questions you may ask.
Check the brand’s website to see if you can find more on these topics. If they don’t have green energy yet, check to see if they have a goal of implementing it in the future, as it can take a bit of time and a lot of money to accomplish.
This can be tricky to find, so do your best to scour a brand’s website, but if you can’t find it, move along to another item on the checklist.
Shipping
Now for the in-between: how does that product get to you or to your local store?
This can be harder to figure out if you buy the item at a local store vs order from their website and have it delivered to your door. But look for the following:
Did it come via plane, boat, truck, or train? The least impactful will depend on your area, but plane shipping is almost always the worst.
Was it packaged plastic-free?
Was the item protected so that it didn’t get damaged?
What was the size of the box? Was the box way too big for that item? That means it took up more space than necessary, which could’ve been occupied by another parcel if it were in an appropriately-sized box.
Did the brand repurpose the box and other shipping materials to reduce their impact?
Are you able to reuse or recycle the shipping materials?
Does the company offset its shipping emissions (more on the nuance of carbon offsetting in this video)?
And so forth!
Circularity/end-of-life consideration
I think something that really stands out among eco brands is how they handle the product’s end-of-life. Many greenwashing brands like Amazon and Coca-Cola will try to hit one or two of these standards, but they will never focus on the product’s end-of-life.
A sustainable brand will make sure that you can reuse that material, or at the very least, compost or recycle it. Not only that, but the MOST sustainable brands will ensure that their product can be refilled, returned, and even repaired when you’ve worn it out. Brands like Patagonia that allow you to send their gear in for repairs, or brands like Plaine Products that take back their aluminum bottles to refill time and time again.
Big brands don’t worry about this because they’ve accomplished their goal: make money. They don’t care about environmental impact, and they don’t care that they have burdened you with the waste. Sustainable brands will take on the responsibility of waste reduction and help you out along the way.
Social responsibility
You might be wondering what this has to do with the environment. Well, human justice and climate justice are inextricably linked through the concept of intersectionality; learn more here. Plus, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to support a company that is exploiting people even if they’re good for the planet.
So, look out for:
Transparent supply chains: Do they outline where their products were made and who made them? Can they trace each product the entire way?
Ethical labor: Can they confirm that everyone is paid a livable wage? Are they able to confirm that those workers had proper PPE and safe working conditions? Do they seek out ways to avoid unethical and slave labor (look for the Fairtrade certification)?
Philanthropy: Do they donate to social causes in their local community? Do they give bonuses to workers up and down the supply chain?
Transparency
Transparency alone does not make a brand sustainable. But I sure do love an honest brand.
Let’s bring it back to Plaine Products again, you know I love to! When I interviewed them in late 2023, I asked them a tough question: Isn’t all this shipping back and forth to refill your bottles a bad thing? And they answered it in stride. They acknowledged that it’s not perfect, but they outlined how they make it as sustainable as possible. Plus, in a world overrun with single-use items, reusing and refilling is always going to be a good option.
Other ways brands may be transparent are by acknowledging that they cannot afford solar panels right now, but that is a goal they are trying to meet. It also looks like Kayaness is posting their PFAS tests on their website to show us that their period underwear is safe and answering more hard questions I threw at them in this video.
Essentially, it boils down to: will the brand answer customer questions honestly, or will they skirt the question and hide the truth?
Always improving
Along those same lines, a sustainable brand will never settle for what they’re doing right now. They will always be setting new sustainability goals. Meanwhile, a greenwashing or unsustainable brand will always settle for less and do the bare minimum to ensure people shop there. They won’t have sustainability goals and will not continuously improve.
This may look like setting higher green energy targets, setting a goal to reduce more waste from the landfill, opting for safer and more eco-friendly ingredients in future products, and things of this nature. Look for this in the website transparency or eco goals section of their websites.
Product design
This is a HUGE way that I personally spot greenwashing. Gotta call out Pela Case now, more in this video. They look sustainable in some lights: they use eco-friendly materials, and their cases can be composted. But why do their cases fall apart so easily, and why has the quality gone down over time? Red flag. Their cases used to last YEARS, now I’m lucky to get 1 year out of them. Their phone grips, too, used to last YEARS, and now barely last a month. It’s sad to see, and it makes me think they’re not sustainable anymore. Of course, it’s better than a brand-new plastic case that cannot be recycled or composted, but still, this is not a sustainable practice from a supposedly sustainable brand.
So, look for these sub-criteria within this category:
Can it be repaired?
Is it made to last a long time?
Can it be refilled or reused in another way?
At the very least, can it be recycled or composted?
A look at the bigger picture
A great way to spot greenwashing when you find an eco product in the wild is to take a look at the brand as a whole. For example, Tide’s “eco” detergent is in a clear bottle and a formula made with no dyes. It looks natural and eco, right? Sure, this one product might be better than their bright orange bottle containing bright blue detergent. But if the brand was truly eco-friendly, wouldn’t they eco-fy their whole company and not just make one eco product? This is signature greenwashing. They’re trying to get the eco-conscious folks out there to buy this sustainable product despite the broader brand not being sustainable.
But when you look at brands like Klean Kanteen and see that 100% of their products are sustainable and the brand as a whole has sustainable goals, that’s a good indicator to support that brand.
Honest marketing/avoiding greenwashing
Truly eco brands will also do everything in their power to avoid greenwashing. Though this is not foolproof. I’ve talked with small brands that want to partner with me, and I’ve noticed greenwashing language in their marketing. I do further research, and if I discover other signs of greenwashing, I’m out. But if I discover that the brand is actually sustainable, their marketing just needs a little work, I let them know that what they said or did appears to be greenwashing, even though I know they’re not.
A brand that comes to mind here is Babo Botanicals. They refuse to use the “reef safe” label on their sunscreens despite them being truly reef safe. That’s because they know the term has been so overused in recent years and carries the weight of looking like greenwashing. Plus, they cannot be 100% sure that every single ingredient they use is actually reef safe, since not every ingredient has had rigorous testing. Well done! Transparency AND a pension for avoiding greenwashing.
Don’t promote overconsumption
Oops, I’m going to call out Pela Case again. Another big red flag to me in recent years is the fact that they are ALWAYS promoting new cases and even promoting people to buy new phones. Yikes. I don’t care how sustainable their cases are in terms of materials; it’s never good to overconsume.
So if a brand is promoting you to use what you have and only buy what you need, that’s a good sign of a sustainable brand that truly cares about the planet and not just lining their wallets.
A sustainable brand that comes to mind here is The Kind Pet. Of course, they need to make money as an e-commerce brand, but in their social media messaging, they are always encouraging their audience to use what they have, repair, and shop secondhand. They clearly care about the planet and not just making a quick buck.
Again, a brand does not have to hit every single one of these boxes to be considered sustainable. If you’re weighing the choice between Brand A and Brand B, and Brand A checks only 2 of the boxes, but Brand B checks 0, then Brand A is more sustainable than Brand B, even if it’s not the most sustainable. That’s how I use this checklist!
Of course, the more a brand checks, the better! Don’t forget to also brush up on your spotting greenwashing skills with this video.
But you can get my free guides to Spotting Greenwashing and the Sustainable Brand Checklist on this page.
Thank you so much for reading along. I truly appreciate your time. This was educational to me, too! Happy conscious shopping! Don’t forget to break up with overconsumption while you’re at it.
As always, remember that your small actions make a big difference in the long run :)
Emma
