CBS 2 Goes Green

Are Green Products Truly Environmentally Friendly?

CBS 2 HD Investigation Reveals That Many Eco-Friendly Labels Come With Serious Shades Of Doubt

NEW YORK (CBS) ― With sales of organic products alone doubling to more than $20 billion in recent years, more and more manufacturers are hoping to cash in on going green. But as CBS 2 HD found out in an investigation, not all of these environmentally friendly products are living up to their promises.

When a product boasts its "93 percent natural" or "clean," what does that mean?

"That it is good for the environment," said Queens consumer Mohammed Kahn.

Or so you would think. Buying eco-sensitive products is one easy way for consumers to feel like they're helping the environment even though it means shelling out more of their own green.

"It is a little bit more expensive when you buy those products," said consumer Marisa O'Keefe of Princeton, N.J.

But as more and more companies bank on your environmental awareness experts say many of their green labels come with a shade of doubt.

"There appears to be a rise in what we call fake environmental labels," said Scot Case with the environmental marketing firm TerraChoice.

It's also known as "greenwashing," said Case, whose firm recently looked at more than 1,000 so-called green products. He charges all but one failed to live up to their assertions.

"It's just something the marketing department created rather than a legitimate environmental claim," said Case.

It's gotten so bad the Federal Trade Commission has been holding hearings over the past year to define the difference between genuine green claims and empty greenwashing.

"A lot of it is done with images, pictures of trees, a globe, pictures of little kids on the globe," said Leonard Gordon of the FTC.

In 1998, the FTC first released a guide on what manufacturers could and could not say about environmentally friendly products. Today, with an explosion of green goods, the agency says they're not only looking at a product's claims but what it's made of, how it was made and the packaging.

"It's not a simple problem and it's not going to have a simple solution," said Gordon.

Since products can make nearly any claim they like, check the ingredients on a product to see what it's really made of. If no ingredients are listed, do some detective work online or call the company to find out more information so you can make a truly informed choice.

The following are some red flags a product is not living up to its promises:

 TerraChoice
 Federal Trade Commission

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