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ScienceApril 12, 2024

Our supermarket aisles are ‘rife with greenwashing’

Climate writer
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While New Zealand is yet to even size up the scale of greenwashing, other parts of the world are forging ahead with new rules.

This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here.

The loo paper in my shopping basket is “earth smart”. The cotton buds, “earth kind”. The packet of cinnamon is “eco”. Like many shoppers perusing the supermarket aisles, buying stuff that’s better for the planet is on my mind.

Sustainability is second only to price when it comes to choosing what to purchase, says Gemma Rasmussen, head of research and advocacy at non-profit Consumer NZ. Forty-four percent of us will switch to a greener-sounding brand – and pay a little extra – if we think it’s more sustainable.

But in many cases, we’re being tricked. The supermarket is an area “rife with greenwashing,” says Rasmussen, referring to the use of meaningless marketing terms and visual cues to persuade shoppers that a product is environmentally friendly.

In an audit, Consumer investigators filled a shopping basket with products and painstakingly scrutinised their green claims, with alarming results. For example, you might think that bin liners made with 50% “ocean plastic” would be made with rubbish collected from the sea. But the label actually refers to plastic picked up within 50km of the coast.

Rasmussen says the government must prioritise greenwashing and fund a comprehensive survey, so we can understand just how bad this problem is. Overseas, sweeps of supermarket shelves have found 40–50% of green claims are unclear or unsubstantiated. “We have suspicions that something similar is happening in New Zealand,” she says.

EU introduces greenwashing rules while NZ lags

While New Zealand is yet to even size up the scale of greenwashing, other jurisdictions are forging ahead with new rules. By 2026, an EU-wide ban on generic buzzwords like “eco” will come into force. Companies wanting to make claims about the sustainability credentials of their products will need to submit evidence to an approved certification scheme. “What that means is as a shopper, you are able to shop with confidence because you know that everything that ended up on shelves has been vetted,” says Rasmussen.

Rasmussen would like to see similar proactive legislation in New Zealand, because “it shouldn’t be the responsibility of the general public” to decipher vague green claims. “I’m really involved in greenwashing and I can’t tell what are genuinely sustainable products and what are not.”

Currently, the Commerce Commission provides environmental guidelines – which aren’t legally binding – and businesses must abide by the Fair Trading Act, which broadly says you can’t mislead or deceive people. But the system is broken, Rasmussen says, “We have a Commerce Commission that doesn’t have the capacity to prosecute, we have a government who’s not prioritising it. We also have businesses who are at a competitive disadvantage because they don’t engage in this.”

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Taking on greenwashing in the High Court

Consumer NZ is taking their advocacy to the High Court, joining forces with Lawyers for Climate Action and the Environmental Law Initiative to take legal action against the second largest emitter in New Zealand, Z Energy. The case alleges that Z’s “Moving with the times” ad campaign constitutes “audacious” greenwashing. “We’re in the business of getting out of the petrol business,” the ads proclaim, highlighting cleaner energy initiatives. “It would be reasonable for any member of the public, who is looking at that campaign, to think that they’re talking about getting out of fuel sales,” says Rasmussen. “In reality, their fossil fuel sales and carbon emissions are increasing… We just think that level of major corporate greenwashing is not OK.” Z Energy filed their defence statement earlier this year.

Ultimately, there’s power in numbers, Rasmussen says, which is why Consumer NZ is calling for New Zealanders to sign on to their greenwashing campaign and submit examples of dodgy eco claims for investigation.

“We know it’s really hard to identify greenwashing. But if people are seeing things that they do think are quite sus, reach out to us because we are really happy to look into that.”

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ScienceApril 5, 2024

How is New Zealand tracking on the quest to be predator free?

Climate writer
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The ‘moonshot’ goal of a pest-free Aotearoa is still a long way off – but some encouraging progress is being made, finds Ellen Rykers.

This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here.

On Waiheke Island, residents are woken up by heightened birdsong and screeching kākā. On the Miramar Peninsula, the Wellington green gecko has been seen for the first time in years – if not generations. And in the hills behind the capital city, reintroduced kiwi are starting to breed.

It’s been almost eight years since former prime minister John Key announced the “moonshot” goal for Aotearoa to be free of rats, possums and mustelids by 2050. Now, in some places, the biodiversity is beginning to bounce back.

“We’re starting to see gains from a community, social perspective, and biodiversity, and also from an economic perspective,” says Brett Butland, landscape director at Predator Free 2050 Ltd. “People are seeing the benefits, the feedback from communities, landowners, mana whenua and councils, they’re seeing economic impact in their region.”

Predator Free 2050 Ltd is the charitable company created by the Crown to deliver on the predator free aspiration, funding 18 landscape-scale projects from the Bay of Islands to Dunedin to the Chatham Islands.

Collectively, they’ve cleared possums, rats and mustelids (stoats, ferrets and weasels) from 107,000 hectares – an area about two-thirds the size of Rakiura Stewart Island. “The biodiversity gains are huge,” says Butland. Waiheke has seen native bird counts increase by 52% compared to 20 years ago, and Miramar Peninsula has seen a 71% increase in native bird detections over five years. The projects are also providing meaningful jobs, opportunities for kaitiakitanga, and community unity.

At a recent hui, the 18 big projects and other players in the Predator Free 2050 movement gathered to discuss these wins – and the big challenges looming. “We’ve gone from the question of ‘can we do this at all?’ to now saying, we can do more than 100,000 hectares and defend that with competence,” says Butland.

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But if we’re going to reach that 2050 target, from 2030 we’ll need to be churning through up to 1.5 million hectares every year, Butland explains, to achieve eradication across the entire 26 million-odd hectares. That will come with a chunky price tag, and poses gnarly technical and social challenges. (This article from The Post has a good overview of some of those difficulties.)

“There’s still a lot we don’t know,” says Butland, “and no silver bullet. But people are working together to find a solution rather than saying it’s just too hard. The tight timeline is “forcing innovation,” Butland says, with 26 new tools on the market. “If there’s a will, there’s a way, and I think we’ve started to show that there’s probably a way.”

“We’re now starting to enable the next generation of children being born who won’t know what a rat in the roof sounds like,” says Butland. Instead, they’ll hear the raucous, lovely kākā.