If you are looking for a pair of socks, they are definitely ” sustainable “. Pickles? “Good for the planet. » Are you ashamed of flying? Don’t worry, you can take a flight “100% compensated”. For several years, environmental promises have invaded shelves, online sales sites and advertising messages.
But often, the green veneer of these speeches does not stand up to the facts. This explains why global warming has continued to worsen, while France’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have only declined timidly in 2023. This greenwashing fools the well-intentioned consumer and prevents us from distinguishing sincere commitments from false promises. To help you see more clearly, The world has dissected several of the most common artifices.
Present the numbers to your advantage
Gauging the ecological nature or not of a product raises many questions. Does it emit a lot of GHGs? Does its production and use harm air, water or biodiversity? Is it sustainable? What will happen to it after its use? Each answer may be controversial. The French government is currently working on the implementation of an environmental rating for products, based on the Nutri-Score model in food, but is struggling to find a convincing formula.
In the meantime, some brands do not bother with nuances, putting forward a figure supposed to demonstrate the virtues of their products. Thus, the national inter-professional livestock and meat association Interbev minimized GHG emissions from cattle breeding in an advertising spot broadcast on the radio at the beginning of 2023: “Cows are ruminants. And rumination naturally produces methane. This methane is offset by 55% by the storage of carbon in the prairie soil. »
Seized by a listener, the Advertising Ethics Jury, a self-regulatory body, estimated that the incriminated spot could have “mislead the public”. Firstly due to failure to cite the source of its assertions, but above all because the figure of 55% of offset emissions actually only concerns one GHG, methane. However, cattle breeding also emits CO2and only offsets a total of 15% to 30% of its GHG emissions through carbon storage in meadows and hedges, depending on the sources.
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