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Two Sides anti-greenwashing campaign challenges perception of paper

Two Sides North America has been actively working on its anti-greenwashing campaign as large service providers used the pandemic as a way to get customers to use electronic communication over paper.

As a result of the renewed effort, 14 companies have changed or removed misleading environmental claims related to print and paper so far this year, including large banks, utilities and notably, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, whose communications reach 15 per cent of the U.S. population.

This is in addition to seven wins in 2020 on greenwashing cases that were already in progress, the organization says in a statement.

“We know that consumers are increasingly aware of the impact their choices have on the environment, and that environmental claims made by companies they trust can influence their decision-making,” says Kathi Rowzie, president of Two Sides North America.

“But those claims often are not based in fact. Many companies continue to encourage consumers to switch from paper to electronic communications using unsubstantiated claims that digital communication is green, saves trees and is better for the environment, and this activity has increased significantly during the pandemic.

“These are clear cases of greenwashing that damage consumer perceptions of paper and put at risk the livelihoods of more than 7 million people in the North American print, paper and mail sector,” Rowzie adds.

The anti-greenwashing campaign has achieved a total of 148 wins in the U.S. and Canada (more than 700 globally) since its inception in 2012, bringing the North American success rate to 68 per cent.

The goal of the campaign is to directly engage and encourage major North American corporations to adopt best practices for environmental marketing established by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Competition Bureau of Canada (CBC), and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 14021).

These standards indicate that environmental marketing claims should be accurate, substantiated by competent and reliable scientific evidence and should not suggest environmental benefits by using broad, vague terms like “green” and “environmentally friendly.”

“One of the distinguishing features of the Two Sides Anti-Greenwashing Campaign is that we don’t push a ‘pixels versus paper’ scenario but instead recognize that both print and electronic communications have attractive benefits and environmental consequences,” says Rowzie.

“It’s a straightforward approach that simply says, ‘Hey Corporate CEO, your company is making unsubstantiated marketing claims about the environmental attributes of print and paper. Here are the facts. We encourage you to follow best practices for environmental marketing from the FTC, CBC and others, and put an end to your misleading claims.”

Not only are greenwashing claims unacceptable under established environmental marketing standards, but they can also harm the companies making them.

“Greenwashing distracts from a company’s legitimate environmental initiatives and can damage corporate reputations when misleading claims are exposed,” says Rowzie.

“And some consumers are skeptical that a commitment to environmental improvement is the underlying motive for companies’ push to go paperless. In a recent Two Sides survey, just over half of consumers said that when a company encourages them to switch from paper to digital communication because ‘it’s better for the environment,’ they know the real reason is that the company is trying to cut costs.”

To promote greater understanding of what greenwashing is, Two Sides has published a new four-page fact sheet titled ‘Go Green, Go Paperless’ Messages are Misleading: The Facts About Greenwashing.