What Americans Misunderstand About Environmental Shopping

kbutler — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Americans tend to go green in primarily one way – they shop green. This is a recent trend – and I for one am not complaining. It’s been a long time coming. I’ve been green since I was a teen….ager. (Sorry, just couldn’t be cute. I just couldn’t.) I grew up in South Jersey which means two things – the first, yes, I have heard that joke about New Jersey. In fact, the entire state has heard that joke. The second is that I grew up in farm country. My childhood home had a dairy barn with a cool calf skeleton in the back and huge rat skull I would poke with a stick. I’ve grown up with flocks of Canadian geese landing in our yard, and I’ve been chased across pastures by annoyed bulls. But since childhood, I’ve also watched South Jersey's beautiful farmlands get built up and built up and built up…. So at an early age, I went eco-warrior.

In any case, I’ve been watching green trends for most of my life. In the 90s, this meant buying (and working for) Ben & Jerry’s. Now with cars to cleaners to organic meatballs, Madison Avenue is pushing the environment on everyone. But a recent poll shows that many Americans don’t really understand what it means to buy green. According to a recent survey, 39% of Americans buy product that they think are “environmentally friendly.” But 48% believe that these products have a positive impact on the environment, while only 22% get that these words actually mean that the impact is “less negative.” (And yes, it took me some hard thinking to absorb that too.)

So how can you be sure that you’re actually shopping green and not, as they call it, falling victim to “greenwashing?” (When companies spin it to look like they are green, when in fact they still make a huge carbon footprint. Yes, there is a term for this.) The EPA actually has an identifying system. If something is labeled DfE, it’s “designed for the environment.” If something has the Energy Star label, it’s good on energy. Also, hit the web – there are several green shopping guides out there, like this one. And this one. Keep buying green, America! We’ve got options to keeping up the good, green fight.

eco-buying

What Americans Misunderstand About Environmental Shopping