Are You A Green-Wash Window Cleaner?

What does green' mean? By Julie DearDorff/Chicago Tribune

These days, going green seemingly is a breeze: Pesticides, SUVs, laptops, bottled water, coal, airlines, cruise ships and dry cleaners all promise that they're "friendly," "gentle" and "kind to the planet." Unfortunately, there probably is no such thing as an "eco-friendly" product since all use resources to create some amount of waste. Environmentalists argue ad infinitum about what "green" really means. And though the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, is supposed to crack down on fraudulent advertising, critics say the agency hasn't kept pace with the burgeoning number of misleading environmental claims.

The result is that consumers are often flooded by greenwash, the practice of disingenuously spinning a product, service or policy as greener than it actually is. Think whitewashing with an eco-brush. One environmental marketing firm, TerraChoice, found some form of greenwashing in 98 percent of the more than 2,219 products with environmental claims that it surveyed. But since no one really knows what "green" means - and marketers have relatively outdated FTC guidelines - consumers are left to sort out which green companies are the real deal.

"The good news is that consumers are taking environmental performance into account when making buying decisions," said Howard Learner, Executive Director of the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center, which is starting to look at which wireless service providers might be truly green. "But if people pay good green dollars to get green performance, the environmental results should justify the investment." Even if you haven't heard the term "greenwashing" which originally referred to hotels making inconsequential environmental changes, you've likely seen it.

A well-known example is the bottled water company that uses a picture of Mother Nature to advertise its product. Greenwashing could be a "biodegradable" label on a product that ends up in a landfill, where it won't decompose. At its worst, greenwashing is outright fraud: Last February the FTC warned 78 retailers, including Wal-mart, Target and Kmart, to stop labeling and advertising rayon textile products as "bamboo" which is considered an environmentally friendly fiber. Fearing that "green" will end up as meaningless as "natural," marketers, environmentalists and business alliances are sponsoring anti-greenwashing conferences across the nation. At the University of Oregon, journalism professors have helped create a tool called "The Greenwashing Index," an initiative designed to draw attention to issues with environmental messages.

The FTC, meanwhile, is expected to release revised environmental marketing guidelines, called The Green Guides, later this year, which some say hope will signal the start of a greenwashing crackdown. When the guides were last updated in 1998, words such as "sustainable" and "carbon neutral" were rarely used. "Greenwashing is confusing to consumers; it takes away business from reputable companies and, most of all, it delays change," said Marilyn Jones, the owner of Consolidated Printing Co. in Chicago, a printing company that uses natural alternatives to conventional printing chemicals. "Why would a dry cleaner or printer become green if they can lie about doing it?"

Though greenwashing is prevalent in all industries, from energy to travel, it's especially controversial in the dry cleaning world, where companies are scrambling to find alternatives to the hazardous chemical percholoroethylene, or perc, which is classified as a "likely" human carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency. A Chicago-area discount dry cleaning chain, Dry Clean Direct, which uses the hydrocarbon technology, proclaims "We're the Green Cleaners!" The company recycles hangers, uses biodegradable plastic bags and calls its petroleum-based solvent - "environmentally friendly." "Save Money, Save the Planet," the company urges.

But Frankel worries that companies like Dry Clean Direct are clouding the issue and making it hard for consumers to figure out what green cleaning really is. "If a chemical company is recycling paper, are they green?" Frankel asked. "The core process of what you do needs to be sustainable, not the peripheral things you do to market yourself as green." Dry Clean Direct CEO Yale Gordon has a different perspective. "It's different views on green," he said. "Some folks say you're only green if you're wet cleaning. But you need to look at the entire business rather than an isolated component."

These differing philosophies show that "green is a continuum" said Scot Case, vice president of TerraChoice. "Consumers need to understand there is no finish line. Recycling coat hangers is a nice step, but when you focus the consumer's attention on or two minor improvements you hide a bunch of the environmental hazards."Case calls this the "sin of the hidden tradeoff' because it often works to distract consumers from the larger environmental issues.

"Greenwashing is often committed by well-intentioned people asking the wrong questions," said Case, taking a break from meetings during the Green Products Round Table in Boca Raton, Fla. a conference held to address greenwashing. "They're exaggerating the environmental benefits or perhaps not asking themselves the right questions about how to improve the environmental service." Consumers, who generally find energy and car companies as the worst greenwashers, can protect themselves by asking their own questions, said Kim Sheehan, a journalism professor at the University of Oregon and co-creator of the Greenwashing Index. "If a company uses green colors, trees, leaves, any type of nature symbol, dig a little deeper to see if they can back up their 'eco-friendliness,'" Sheehan said.

HOW TO AVOID GREENWASHING:

Watch for the sneaky six. The following six words: eco, earth, green, friendly, gentle or kind. They can be mixed and matched to create a phrase that sounds green but means nothing, said Kim Sheehan, co-creator of the EnviroMedia Greenwashing Index. Look for third-party certifying seals. Since there are more than 350 different eco-seals, you have to look carefully. EcoLogo, Green Seal, Energy Star and Watersense are all considered trustworthy. Also look for the Forest Stewardship Council, the FTC, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

Use Google. Though far from scientific, try googling the company name plus the word "environment" and see what pops up. "If consumers or environmental advocates have a beef with the company's track record, something's bound to pop up," according to the Greenwashing Index Web site. Know TerraChoice's "Seven Sins of Greenwashing." These include the "sin of no proof" (tissues that claim various percentages of post-consumer recycled content without providing evidence), "the sin of vagueness" (all-natural isn't necessarily green since poisonous substances such as arsenic and mercury are also "natural"), the "sin of irrelevance" (a product labeled CFC-free doesn't mean much since CFCs are banned by law) and the "sin of lesser of two evils (the fuel efficient sport-utility vehicle).

Earth Day Window Cleaning News

Market Earth Day With a Free Guide: If you’re wondering how to tap into the public awareness of Earth Day in a way that will help your customers and clients, then check out this link to a free downloadable Earth Day Guide. Your clients might appreciate it, and anything done in a balanced way to reduce pollution and preserve the planet’s resources is commendable, and worth considering, anyway. Oh - and the guide is free. (It’s well-designed, too, so you’ll look professional, smart, and responsible by slapping your window cleaning logo and contact details on the front)


The biggest ‘green’ marketing scams/These products don’t help the enviroment and may not work at all. In greenwashing, as in life, there are seven sins. There's the sin of the hidden trade-off, for example, the sin of vagueness, and the sin of no proof. So says sins of greenwashing, which takes on companies that offer seemingly green benefits — often at a hefty price tag — with little results. As the green trend continues, companies in almost every industry vie for a piece of the green market, even the embattled General Motors has taken a chance on its own green product initiative. But as the field of green products grows, so does the number of impostors. The following is a list of some of the most perplexing green products out there-and an assessment of just how scammy they might be:
Clorox "Green Works" products Green Works launched a little more than a year ago, under the pretense of bringing eco-friendly home-cleaning goods, such as all-surface and window cleaners, to the mass market. Several of these products, however, contain corn-based ethanol, which the environmental community has targeted for being neither cost effective nor eco-friendly. Many items in the Green Works line also include sodium lauryl sulfate-which the company describes as a "coconut-based cleaning agent." That may be true, but, coconut or not, SLS has long been criticized by the scientific community for its not-so-natural effects; the American College of Toxicology described SLS as a known skin irritant in a report published more than 20 years ago.

See comment below.

Avoiding Greenwashing: Being branded a ‘greenwasher’ not only affects credibility, but it could lead to legal action. Green has become a major issue for all industries — and a potentially problematic and confusing one. TerraChoice recently reviewed 1,018 products and found that all but one made claims that were false or that risked being misleading. All but one! Green claims have become so commonplace that the term “greenwash” has become part of the discussion. This is especially true as our customers become more knowledgeable about green, and being branded a “greenwasher” not only affects credibility in their eyes, but could potentially lead to legal action. According to Wikipedia, “greenwash” is a blend of green and whitewash, and is used to describe the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.
Marketing claims are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has issued voluntary guidance on environmental advertising and marketing practices. While the FTC is the rule-maker on this subject, TerraChoice’s “Six Sins of Greenwashing” can be helpful for contractors developing marketing materials. ISSA can also provide helpful support.
Some examples that contractors may want to consider include:
Claim of improved occupant health and productivity. It is not enough to use anecdotal evidence (stories) or general evidence from the cleaning industry that supports your hypothesis. You must have specific scientific evidence to support your claim or it may be considered false or misleading.
Claims that products meet or exceed the requirements of Green Seal or similar third-party certifier. Unless products are officially “certified” or you have specific test data to prove that products “meet and exceed” an organization’s requirements, you may be heading for trouble. And be aware that it is not enough to simply take your supplier’s word for it. If you are making the claim, you have to be able to substantiate it, so ask your suppliers for the documentation.
A claim of using “only green products” can be made as long as you can document that you are in fact using only green products including chemicals, paper, equipment, liners, mops, carts, dusters, etc. If you use words such as “only,” “always,” “all,” “never,” etc., you have to mean it with no exceptions or the claim may be false or misleading, otherwise consider modifying your claim.
Be careful when using logos and mentioning organizations such as U.S. Green Building Council, Green Seal, Environmental Choice, etc. Make sure it is clear if just a single employee is a member, if the company is a corporate member, or if the company holds some specific certification from the organization, or if some or all of the products are certified, otherwise your claim could be misleading.
Make it clear when making green claims whether the claim refers to products being used; applies to the service being performed including products, training, procedures, communications and stewardship programs; or is for the company itself including buildings, internal operations, vehicles, etc.
Remember, it doesn’t matter if the problem was intentional or inadvertent. It’s preferable to get it right from the beginning. For more information or questions, don’t hesitate to visit or to contact us at Janitor’s World.

What Not To Do on Earth Day: Bullet point 2. Don’t use cleansers and personal care products that contain triclosan or other antibacterial agents. Public health officials worry that antibacterials in cleansers, window cleaners, and soaps are causing us to become resistant to antibiotics. Use simple soap and hot water for cleaning, and body soaps and lotions that do not say “antibacterial” or “fights germs” on the label.

Earth Day in Brampton: With the help of RONA Home and Garden and their new ECO line, the Brampton Downtown Development Corporation (BDDC) is inviting the merchants and business owners in Downtown Brampton to clean their windows, making the downtown sparkle. On EARTH DAY, Wednesday, April 22, 2009 the BDDC and RONA are inviting the Downtown Street Front Business to come out and clean their windows in an environmentally friendlier way! As Earth Day quickly approaches members of the RONA team from both Brampton locations & the BDDC want to remind us all about cleaning green! RONA is supplying the downtown merchants and businesses with a bottle of ECO Glass & Surface Cleaner and a squeegee, for free! RONA has succeeded in creating a product that lessens our ecological footprint and works! This brand new line of eco friendly cleaners is gentle on consumers and the earth alike. So go green on Earth Day, while still keeping clean.

The ladder bows and almost seems to bounce a bit, but it's been carefully placed. It's leaning against glass. Jose Galnban steps up and down with his window washing squeegee, rags and cleaning fluids. He has an elevated view of Lewisburg's public square, but pays attention t his job. Jason Moorish steadies the ladder for his co-worker who's facing the third floor lobby of the Marshall County Courthouse Annex. It's a warm Thursday afternoon. The windows are clear when they leave. Then it rained over the weekend.

Teens Turn to Summer Start-Ups: Faced with the darkest summer-job market since the government began collecting data after World War II, a growing number of teens are turning to entrepreneurship. The government's $1.2 billion youth jobs program is expected to make barely a dent in overall teen joblessness this summer. Employment among 16- to 19-year-olds is still likely to sink to a new low of 31% or 32% this summer, down from a previous nadir of 32.7% in 2008, says Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. Thus "for many kids, starting a business may be the only option if they want to make some money. For teens considering start-ups, and for their parents, adolescent entrepreneurs offer some tips: Look for a low-cost niche. After a vendor knocked at Loree Greta's door last summer in Austin, Texas, offering to clean her windows for $150, she suggested her 14-year-old son, Max (the brother of jewelry maker Marlo Adelle), make the rounds offering to do the same for one-third as much. Brandishing a long-handled squeegee, vinegar, buckets and newspaper, Max earned about $300 washing windows.