Greenwashing isn’t new. But it’s becoming increasingly uncommon to see blatant examples of it anymore. We try to give companies the benefit of the doubt and assume positive intentions in lots of ways. And we recognize that sometimes a company makes misleading claims about their ingredient safety or sustainability efforts out of ignorance and not necessarily with malicious intent. In our opinion, sometimes it’s clear that a company is attempting to build their credibility on these issues without really walking the talk.

Lots of companies use certifications to help create perceptions of credible action on impacts to people and planet. For example, while researching the furniture company Saatva as part of our evaluation process we noticed that the company claims to have Cradle to Cradle certification, OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certification, and several others. As part of our evaluation process we often attempt to verify that a given company actually holds the certifications they claim to have by checking with the organization that administers it. In this case we were unable to verify that any products or materials used by Saatva actually carry these particular certifications.

The obvious solution is to ensure that any certification your company claims to have, at the product, material, ingredient or organizational level can be easily verified. Check to make sure that your company name shows up when someone searches for it before you feature that certification logo in your marketing or content. Additionally, when companies feature certifications with little credible information to further substantiate their efforts related to the kind of impact being certified it looks suspicious. Make sure you feature some context about how a given certification is representative of a larger effort at the company to credibly address the area of impact.