Greenwashing: don't be deceived by eco-claims

A close-up of a gloved hand holding two disposable plastic cups labeled "eco products" with green branding, partially filled with beach sand — symbolizing the deceptive use of biodegradable and compostable claims in single-use packaging. This image highlights the contradiction in greenwashed marketing vs. actual environmental impact.

The green lie

We are living through an age of shimmer and sleight — a time when the sheen of sustainability can often obscure more than it reveals. Greenwashing, they call it: a word that sounds almost gentle, like rain against leaves or a forest seen through mist. But beneath its surface lies a troubling deceit. It is the art of painting the illusion of care for the Earth, of draping a veil of virtue over actions that, when unmasked, harm more than they help.

The term was coined in the 1980s, when a weary traveller in a hotel room noticed the placard beside his towels — an appeal to save the planet by reusing linen, all while the hotel chain expanded, unregulated and wasteful. Since then, the practice has proliferated, finding new forms in every industry that seeks to clothe itself in the costume of concern. From cosmetics to coffee beans, fast fashion to fuels, the green lie has grown sophisticated. It has learned to speak fluently in the dialect of conscience.

And it is everywhere now. It curls in the language of labels and seeps through advertising copy. It blooms in the staged photos of forests and dolphins, of hands cradling soil, of sunlit wind turbines spinning on distant hills. The earth is invoked in image, but rarely in action.

But we are not just deceived — we are softened by the deception. We are lulled into a sense that all is being handled, that the brands we buy from have taken up the cause on our behalf. The work is being done, they assure us; your shampoo bottle, your trainers, your cereal box — all are friends to the planet. Go on, consume. You’re helping.

This is the real danger. Not simply that companies lie — we know they do — but that we, weary and worried and wanting to do right, believe them.

Consider the language used. Words like “natural,” “eco-conscious,” “green,” “clean,” and “sustainable” spill from packaging and product descriptions like spring water — clear, flowing, but ultimately shallow. These terms are rarely defined, rarely quantified, and never regulated in any meaningful way. What does “all-natural” mean on a label when petroleum is natural, too? When a product is dubbed “environmentally friendly,” where is the proof?

And proof is what we need. Because what we’re truly searching for, beneath the promises and the gloss, is a kind of trust. A sense that our choices are not quietly undermining the world we love. That our daily rituals — brushing teeth, buying clothes, boiling kettles — are not laying waste to the very landscapes we long to preserve.

But trust must be earned, not assumed. And in a marketplace flooded with eco-claims, we need more than pretty pictures and buzzwords. We need clarity. We need standards. We need to remember that sustainability is not a status to be claimed, but a practice — ongoing, rigorous, and imperfect.

The reality is this: a leaf on a bottle does not mean the bottle biodegrades. A badge that says “green” might mean nothing at all. Even the word “organic” — once a clarion call for soil and soul integrity — has been diluted, stamped on products with only a trace of what it once meant.

The companies know we are looking. They know we scan the packaging, that we pause over claims, that we carry a new kind of anxiety into the shops with us. And they have responded not always with better practices, but with better distractions. Their goal is to soothe, not to change.

We must learn to see through it. To train our eyes to notice not just what is said, but what is unsaid. To recognise when language hides rather than reveals. To question the images offered to us — the meadow on the milk carton, the rainforest on the shampoo, the gentle green font on the cleaning spray — and ask: what is this really telling me?

This is not a call to cynicism, but to discernment. There is hope in the act of looking closely. In peeling back the veneer. In asking better questions. Because behind every claim is a chain of consequence, and behind every product, a place. A river. A forest. A field. A child’s lungs. A species’ last refuge.

The first step in resisting greenwashing is to slow down and notice. Not just what we are told, but what we are not told. Not just the surface, but the source.

Let us begin there.

Eco-friendly or just talk?

Greenwashing thrives in the half-light, in that murky space between what is said and what is meant. It is a mimicry of goodness — not goodness itself — and like all clever imitations, it depends upon subtlety. In this part of the journey, we look more closely at the tactics: the sleights of hand, the suggestive words, the borrowed imagery. What tricks are used to green the ungreen? And how might we train ourselves to read them?

We begin with language — for that is where most deception begins. The words chosen by marketers are rarely accidental. They are tested, polished, and placed with precision, meant not to describe but to suggest. “Natural,” “pure,” “clean,” “sustainable”: these are the soft syllables of reassurance, the lullaby of the modern marketplace. But they are rarely anchored in substance.

Sustainable takeaway packaging with bold green messaging, including a cardboard carrier printed with "The Future Is Green" and a recycled paper coffee cup marked with the recycling symbol, set against a leafy backdrop—highlighting the visual language of eco-branding.

Take the word “natural.” It has become an all-purpose incantation, implying safety, health, goodness. Yet the natural world is full of poisons — arsenic is natural, as is mercury. When a shampoo is called “natural,” does it mean the ingredients were harvested without harm? That no synthetic chemicals were used? That the packaging degrades harmlessly into soil? Usually not. It may simply mean that one plant extract — lavender oil, say — has been added, in trace amounts, to a formula still brimming with petrochemicals.

And then there is “eco-friendly.” A phrase so broad it can mean anything — or nothing. A detergent may call itself “eco-friendly” because it comes in a recycled plastic bottle, while the liquid inside poisons waterways. A T-shirt brand may use the term because its cotton is “organic,” despite being sewn in factories powered by coal, shipped across oceans, wrapped in plastic.

These terms are not meaningless, exactly — but they are unmoored. They drift freely across products and industries, free of regulation or accountability. This is the linguistic equivalent of planting a tree in a desert and calling it a forest.

Then comes imagery, which plays upon the eye the way words play upon the mind. Here is a leaf, delicately veined, printed on a bottle of bleach. Here is a deer, poised and peaceful, on a pack of toilet paper. Here is a child, arms raised toward a blue sky, on an airline’s carbon-offset page. These are not facts. These are feelings.

Marketers understand that emotions steer decisions more powerfully than data. They know that our concern for the planet is genuine — and that we are often short on time, exhausted by complexity. So they offer us stories instead of statistics, symbolism instead of science. A green label becomes a kind of absolution: Buy this, and your impact is softened. Your guilt is eased.

We must resist the seduction of symbols.

Some companies go further, employing what seem to be certifications or seals of approval — icons shaped like leaves or earths or hearts, bearing phrases like “100% green” or “Earth Smart.” These often look official, even governmental. But look closer, and many of these stamps are self-created — designed in-house, without oversight or standards. It is not uncommon to find entire marketing teams inventing their own “sustainability seals,” to cloak products in a thin scrim of legitimacy.

Three eco-labeled cardboard packages reading Biodegradable Package, Recyclable Package, and Sustainable Package, standing in a minimalist setting—highlighting the marketing language often used in sustainable packaging.

There are real certifications, of course. But even these can be complex and compromised. The “organic” label in some countries requires only a small percentage of ingredients to be organic. “Biodegradable” may mean that a product breaks down eventually — but “eventually” can mean decades, in conditions found only in industrial facilities. And “compostable” packaging may not be compostable at home at all.

This confusion is not accidental. It benefits those who do not want you to look too hard. To them, ambiguity is profitable.

So what, then, are we to do? Must we become forensic analysts, decoding every claim, researching every seal, scrutinising every label?

Perhaps. Or perhaps more simply, we must become attentive. We must notice when language is vague, when evidence is absent, when questions go unanswered. We must see past the green glow that companies cast around their products and ask: What is this really made of? Where did it come from? What happens to it when I’m done?

To ask these questions is not to make perfection the enemy of the good. It is not to paralyse ourselves with guilt. It is to practise a kind of active care — a refusal to be lulled. In this way, sustainability becomes not a brand feature but a lens, a way of seeing through.

Greenwashing is not just a corporate deception. It is a theft — of our good intentions, of our will to act. When we believe we are doing enough, we stop doing more. When we are soothed into passivity, change slows.

To resist greenwashing, then, is not merely to become better consumers. It is to become more critical, awake, and disobedient in our attention. It is to reassert the power of truth over convenience, and to remember that what is easy is often not what is right.

We are not powerless. The choices we make, the questions we ask, the lies we refuse — these ripple outward. And where greenwashing relies on murk, our clearest weapon is light.

Let us keep bringing things into the light.

What true sustainability looks like (and how to find it)

If greenwashing is the veil, then what lies behind it? What does genuine sustainability look like — in the hand, in the field, in the flow of things?

The answer is rarely simple, and never perfect. But there are patterns, signs, textures that reveal when something is rooted in care rather than merely cloaked in it.

Authentic sustainability feels different. It is rarely loud. It does not shout in slogans or drape itself in leafy symbolism. Instead, it speaks in detail — in numbers, in stories, in transparency. It tells you where the cotton came from and who picked it. It shows you how much water was used to grow it, how much carbon was burned to ship it, how it will return to the Earth when its usefulness is done.

It does not pretend to be without harm. Instead, it accounts for harm — and then does the work to reduce it. This is what makes it real: not perfection, but honesty.

Too often, we mistake sustainability for aesthetics — a kind of minimalist virtue, all beige tones and recycled fonts. But the grain of the real is messier. It involves trade-offs, tensions, decisions made in full view of their cost. A recycled material that takes more energy to process. A local product that costs more. A compostable wrapper that only breaks down under rare conditions.

These contradictions are not failures — they are the soil in which true solutions grow. Any company that admits them is doing something rare: telling the truth.

Look for this honesty. Listen for it in how a brand answers questions. Do they explain the limitations of their methods? Do they offer specific data — emissions, energy use, water footprint? Do they show the timeline of their goals, and report progress even when it’s slow? Do they tell you what they are still getting wrong?

This kind of transparency is not just ethical — it is strategic. For trust, once lost, is difficult to restore. Consumers are not naive, and many are no longer content with green-tinted platitudes. They want the rough edges. They want to see the process, not just the product.

We see this shift in the rise of B Corporations, which meet verified standards of social and environmental performance. In the work of Fairtrade and Cradle to Cradle certification. In companies that open their supply chains to scrutiny, that invite independent audits, that publish lifecycle assessments. These are not perfect systems — no certification is. But they are steps on a path that leads toward responsibility, not away from it.

And then there are the smaller signs. A company that offers repairs rather than replacements.

Close-up of hands mending fabric with needle and thread, surrounded by spools of colorful thread—a quiet act of care and circular living that reflects authentic sustainability practices.

One that shows you how to compost the packaging, or lets you refill instead of repurchase. One that doesn’t advertise endlessly, but simply informs, humbly.

True sustainability is slow and difficult. It requires sacrifice — sometimes of convenience, sometimes of profit margins. It cannot be mass-produced without becoming something else. It cannot be rushed.

And yet — it is not joyless. Quite the opposite. There is pleasure in the material honesty of well-made, well-sourced things. In a shirt that lasts ten years. In soap that leaves no trace. In knowing that what you’ve bought was not spun from a lie.

The weight of the choice

In the end, greenwashing is not only about deceit — it is about the dilution of hope.

Each time a company wraps destruction in the language of care, it erodes our belief that real change is possible. It teaches us that efforts don’t matter, that all claims are lies, that nothing is worth trusting.

A green paintbrush draws an “X” across a surface in vivid eco-colored strokes, symbolizing the rejection of superficial sustainability and the need to make conscious environmental choices.

But that is not the truth. The truth is this: some choices still count. Some paths still lead forward.

We will not buy our way to salvation — but how we spend does shape the world. Each decision is a vote, a whisper of preference, a seed in the soil of the future.

And so we must stay awake. Skeptical, but not cynical. Hopeful, but not naive.

We learn to ask. To pause. To see through. We learn that true sustainability is quiet, transparent, often flawed — but it owns its flaws. We learn that greenwashing needs our inattention to survive.

Let us no longer give it that.

Let us look closer. And in looking, begin again — with less harm, more care, and the kind of clarity that changes not just what we buy, but what we believe is worth building.