Carbopedia

What does it mean to be 'green'?

What does Carbon Planet mean by the term 'green'?

With the rise of environmentally friendly consumer goods has come the rise of the "greenwash", and a subsequent series of enquiries from consumer watchdog bodies such as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission into false claims. See for example "Green Marketing and the Trade Practices Act".

The outcome of this enquiry is that "Firms which make environmental or 'green' claims should ensure that their claims are scientifically sound and appropriately substantiated.

What this means for the consumer is: You can judge a product by its label, but the label may take some reading.

What does it mean to be green?

To be truly "green" the impact of a product's full lifecycle must be taken into account via a Life Cycle Analysis ("LCA"). An LCA is an analysis of the environmental impact of of product or service from cradle to grave ie. from its development and manufacture, through its use and its disposal.

In the absence of a truly green option you can look for shades of green. Is a product really green if only one of the processes is sustainable yet all the rest are really damaging to the planet?

To provide an example:

Should I choose:

  1. certified carbon neutral paper that is not recycled
  2. recycled paper that is not carbon neutral
  3. Paper from a certified environmentally friendly factory on the other side of the world
  4. uncertified carbon neutral paper
  5. Whatever is cheapest
  6. The one that is the best quality functionally.

Option A should be the best alternative - but only as long as you can make sure that sustainable forestry practices are used - whereby the forests are not old growth, and are replanted at a faster rate than they are chopped down.

Option B - may be the best alternative, if it is 100% recycled, if it is manufactured locally, and you can make sure it is carbon neutral by default if you have a full subscription to certified carbon credits.

Option C - may be the greenest thing in the world, but it's not really green any more if it had to travel half way around the world to get to the store.

Option D - may or may not be green, without third party certification you never really know.

Option E - At present it is often more expensive to choose a properly green product, because many of the processes lack economy of scale. The more that get purchased, the more will be created, and the cheaper they will become.

Option F - The reality is, you shouldn't have to compromise functionality for sustainability.

So what product should you choose?

You should decide what issues are most important to you, and create your own checklist of priorities.

But always make sure that your final choice is an informed one - choose products with third party certification. These certifications give you stronger guarantees that you are getting what you are paying for.

A sports car that is properly offset with certified carbon credits actually has less net greenhouse gas emissions than a Prius or a Smart car, Hence, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the offset car is greener.

Purchase your own supply of certified carbon credits, that way you know that everything you are consuming is carbon neutral already, leaving you free to make your purchases based on other options.

At Carbon Planet our number one issue is greenhouse gas emissions, so we'll call something "green" if:

  1. The carbon footprint has been appropriately measured
  2. Actions are being put in place to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions where possible
  3. Certified carbon credits have been purchased to offset emissions from the assessed period

AND wherever possible we'll look for options that tread lightly on the planet in terms of other environmental issues, and encourage bio-diversity.