Greenwashing: Avoiding Eco-Hype

From National Ge0graphic’s Green Guide:

You recycle, ride a bike to work, and buy organic food. You pay extra for “green” electricity and have an eco-friendly car. So can you rest easy, with a clean conscience that your life is as sustainable as it can reasonably be?

Well … although many of us try our best to minimize environmental impacts, our actions don’t always achieve as much as we believe.

Expensive products that are marketed as eco-friendly may help us to assuage our guilt while drawing our attention away from the more pressing issues.

Meanwhile, other actions and products can be useful, but only when used as part of a wider environmentally aware lifestyle. Most worrying of all, some things marketed as sustainable can have negative side effects for the environment—that’s called greenwashing.

The Green Guide talked to several sustainability experts who highlighted five eco-strategies and products that may not be all they are hyped up to be.

Continue reading: Greenwashing: Avoiding Eco-Hype