March 23rd, 2009

How do you go about assessing the authenticity of a company’s claims to be green?

My response to the above LinkedIn question:

There are many ways to weed out greenwashing from the genuine, but no ubiquitous standards, unfortunately — it’s more of a what does “green,” “sustainability” and/or corporate “social responsibility” (CSR) mean to you? How do you go about determining what organizations are genuinely engaged in this area? And how should what you learn affect your relationship or potential relationship with those organization(s)?

There are dozens or maybe even hundreds of third-party certifications in the green arena, including such common ones as USDA Organic, Fair Trade and LEED for buildings. These are a quick way for organizations in certain industries to get credibility and for their stakeholders to note. We’ll be putting out a white paper on third-party certifications soon.

There’s the Internet and social media. The social media universe, including the blogosphere will generally vet greenwashers pretty quickly. Setting up a Google Alert is one easy, free way to monitor what people on the web are saying about a brand that claims to be green.

There are also reporting standards, including the Global Reporting Initiative, to which many of the Fortune 1000, and some smaller companies, adhere when issuing sustainability or CSR reports.