As I have been contemplating this blog I have wondered how to evaluate environmental claims. Terrachoice, which claims to be North Anerica’s premiere environmental marketing agency, offers an interesting framework for evaluating environmental claims – The Six Sins of Greenwashing.  They seem to have derived these “sins” from research at big box retailers and the environmental claims they saw on products there. 

The Six Sins are:

1. Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off
2. Sin of No Proof
3. Sin of Vagueness
4. Sin of Irrelevance
5. Sin of Fibbing
6. Sin of Lesser of Two Evils

For more details on the Six Sins Terrachoice offers a “green paper” on their study.

I will add these sins as tags for future use.  It will be interesting to see how competing systems or frameworks treat the same products and companies.