What does green really mean?

The Great Big Green Week has begun! This week sees communities across the UK join forces in support, celebrating ways to take action to tackle climate change, and to protect green spaces, and promote the importance of these things, raising their profile both within the community and for local and national leaders.

This is a cause that has been very important to me since childhood. It has always made perfect sense that we need to look after where we live - from our home to our community, to our environment, both locally and globally. Yet I have always been saddened and disappointed to find others mistreating these spaces, from littering and lighting irresponsible fires, to disturbing wildlife and building on natural spaces from back yards to fields. I do what I can, when I can, from picking up litter, educating myself and taking as green an approach as possible, creating my own wildlife garden at home, and joining conservation efforts at local nature reserves and green spaces.

My business, ZoCo Wellness, is based on values, creating a business that is safe, authentic, empowering, honest, and holistic. I believe in wellness for everybody, but not at the expense of the wellness of the planet. How is my business green? This means all my products are vegan, cruelty-free and sustainably sourced, that I reuse, recycle or compost all waste where possible, and supplies are reused, reclaimed, or upcycled. It also means that my business spends green; where possible I use and select products made from recycled or biodegradable materials, and ensure any printing is climate neutral. The energy my business runs on is also green.

Supporting truly green businesses is more than buying green products; not only does my business use and spend green, but I use and spend green behind the scenes… think of your money as ‘the green pound.’ When you spend your pound with green businesses, it’s likely that pound will stay within a network of green businesses and ventures.

I say ‘truly green’ businesses, as recently there has been a rise in what’s known as ‘greenwashing’ where companies use crafty marketing to imply that they are eco-friendly when they’re not ~ at least not entirely. Focused entirely on profit, they seem to spend many more resources trying to shout and ‘prove’ that they're green, than actually being green. It can mean that even the most well-intentioned of us consumers can end up making accidental bad decisions. Greenwashing can come through misinformation, conflicting practices, or using a green campaign to avert attention from otherwise environmentally harmful practices. The term greenwashing has been around since the 80s, so the concept is not at all new, but the practice of it is on the rise. Check out my 9 tips to avoid being greenwashed at the end of this blog.

Some examples of greenwashing:

• Fashion brands claiming to recycle your old clothes, and bringing out ‘eco’ collections of clothing, which can be worse for the environment than their regular clothing lines; polluting waterways and using new plastic-based materials which they know will lead to microplastics.
• Bigging up packaging changes made for reasons of cost, and rebranding these as eco choices
• Using vague language to sound green/eco, leading to meaningless claims
• Brands changing their slogans and using posters, shop windows, and lorry-sides to promote something that sounds green, whilst actively ignoring their own claim/goal and continuing to practice or trade in a way that is environmentally destructive
• Duping with packaging. Bamboo toothbrushes have recently become ubiquitous. This is great, as a huge chunk of plastic has been replaced with a fast-growing, biodegradable alternative of wood. However that does not mean that everything with a hint of bamboo in it is an eco-friendly product. Yet many companies are making things ‘out of bamboo’ and because the bamboo has become a buzz word synonymous with eco-friendliness, slapping the word bamboo on the packet is duping many less-informed, well-intentioned people into buying all sorts of products which don’t need to be bamboo, include only a small proportion of bamboo, and/or are sometimes are even wrapped in plastic.

What am I doing for The Great Big Green Week? I’m holding a stall at The Big Green Eco Fair at Plymouth’s Unitarian Church, where I’ll have taster treatment/healing sessions available. I will also be giving a talk there on Sunday 26th about Green Wellbeing, sharing tips on how you can be green in the way you look after yourself and keep your wellness up. The fair runs Saturday and Sunday 25th & 26th September from 10am - 5pm each day. I really hope you’ll join us! 

I have also organised a Gratitude and Wellness in the Park event for Friday 24th September at 10am, in Central Park, Plymouth. Read more about the event here. Tickets are available via eventbrite below. I hope you'll join me.

Find out more about The Great Big Green Week on their website.

Buy Tickets

9 tips to avoid being greenwashed

1. Look at the ‘about’ section of companies’ websites to find out more about their values. If they are very eco-conscious they are likely to give lots of information about their practices and go into fine detail, such as what they do with their industrial waste.
   
   
2. Ask yourself questions ~ marketing is there to get you to buy. Consider plastics, emissions, deforestation, water pollution, recycling, biodegradability, industrial waste, consumer waste…
   
   
3. If in doubt, ask around - friends, family, facebook groups… ask the company themselves and see what kind of response you get!
   
   
4. Look for proof ~ where is the evidence to back up their claims? Proof may come in the form of signs and symbols, like the cruelty free bunny for cosmetics, FSC for paper, citing references from research/studies.
   
   
5. Consider science/precision when it comes to claims… vague claims are often meaningless; ‘chemical free’ / ‘non-toxic’ (impossible), ‘natural’ (doesn’t mean not dangerous), ‘green’ / ‘eco’ (no set definition), ‘recycled content’ (how much exactly?)
   
   
6. Zoom out for a bias check ~ is there only one thing about the product that is green, or does everything about it look green? Eg paper that is FSC certified - is it also recycled? Bleach free? Is the packaging recycled/recyclable?
   
   
7. Consider the carbon footprint of the product ~ what it is made from, where its components were made, where the product was assembled, how much manufacture was involved in putting the product together… then weigh this against the product and how else it could have been done.
   
   
8. Look up the website/app ‘good on you’ which rates fashion companies by their ethics, giving details as to their successes and failings.
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9. Sometimes there are lies. If it seems too good to be true, it might be!