For years, the food industry has been listing the nutritional information of packaged food. Things like vitamin content, calories, minerals, sugar, salt, etc. Now the ‘Smart Choices Program’ has come up with a way to make it easier for consumers to make smart nutrition choices.

It’s simple: The labels will have two parts. First, there will be a green check markand the “Smart Choices Program” label for foods that meet certainnutritional requirements within some categories. The other parthighlights the calories per serving and the servings per container.

Woudn’t it be cool to add a ‘Green choices’ program to to this? Maybe we can get the Smart choices guys to give us back our colour : )

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Here’s how you can easily make the best green choices in the shopping aisles of almost every retailer.

It’s simple, straightforward, and you know you’ve made your best effort to go green:

BEST CHOICE = Look for an independent “green” or “eco” labelExample:A. Ecologo Green Paper Towel; BEST CHOICEB: Loblaw’s Green Paper Towel.

Note: Not sure about label? Investigate at ecolabelling.org

OK CHOICE = Green or eco words used on productExample: “natural, earth friendly, organic, green, eco-friendly, climate friendly”Risks: A good list of greenwashing examples from the LA Times.

EVERY BIT HELPS CHOICE = Recycled packaging

Be aware that the product inside won’t be green, but if there aren’t any better options then go for it, every little bit helps!

So what is a label anyway?

Case in point: CO2 Stats. You can ‘green your website’ by downloading their gadget…and many have already. As such, it’s acting as an eco-label for websites.

But before we decide if it’s a label, it would be good to know, at the very least:- Where are the “Stats” coming from?- How do we know that emissions are offset: where, when, how?We are also wondering: does a green web just mean calculating then offsetting your individual CO2 emissions when online?

I, like Madonna, am still pretty sure I am living in a material world and toxics and electronic waste are the underbelly of the web.

Even if we give the green light to the “green=CO2 offset” equation, at the very least we should know what’s being offset and how.Come on guys, tell us your story. Even if you are not up to revealing the secret sauce of your algorithm, a few more details wouldn’t go astray.

We are spinning out on spin these days.

“Yes, but I think greenwashing is good. Hypocrisy is the first step to real change.” says Hunter Lovins in reply to the question “is there more greenwashing now that green is popular?” in the recent Sustainable Industries Journal.

OK, interesting idea. Um, why?

“If a company makes a claim about something, then you can hold them accountable”

The logic is that once the company has made a claim, in order to avoid being called greenwashers, they will try to back up that claim with real action.”And then as they make steps to bring their performance in line with what they’re marketing, they actually see the benefit of that improved performance, and it becomes something they integrate into their business for real.” says Lovins.
Do all efforts at greening necessarily lead to business benefits?

Greenwashing still seems kind of risky as a marketing strategy. Very hard to bring consumers back with another campaign that says “this time we mean it”! Now that would be seen as hypocrisy, unless of course, we take another spin.