Public awareness of the environmental and social impacts of consumption has been growing for decades – whether the issue is pollution, deforestation, intensive agriculture, or climate change. Many corporations have responded by making ‘green’ claims about their own products – for example that they are ‘organic’, ‘chlorine-free’, ‘low carbon’, or ‘made with wood from sustainably managed forests’. But are such claims credible? What distinguishes legitimate claims from so-called ‘green washing’?

ISO?s Consumer Policy Committee established an ?Ethical Trade Fact-finding Process? (ETFP) in May 2007, with the aim of understanding the nature and extent of inaccurate or false ?ethical? claims, as a step towards developing solutions to any problems identified, and building consumer confidence in reliable claims. OneWorldStandards and The Pacific Institute reviewed and analysed 180 articles, studies and reports for the ETFP, covering a wide range of ?environmental? and ?social? claims. The outcome was a report based on a comprehensive review of the facts, in so far as they were known, rather than on unsupported assumptions, assertions and anecdotes.

The report found significant gaps and problems with research on some fundamental issues. For example, there was little research comparing the social and environmental impacts of standards or claims based on broad life-cycle assessments, compared to approaches focussed on specific issues such as forest management, or sustainable fisheries. Nor was there research into the impacts of standards with different performance levels – for example, of ‘high’ standards compared to standards designed to support more gradual improvements over time.

The report argued that more research was needed, prior to the review and revision of ISO standards on green claims. In the interim, there would be value in identifying and seeking agreement on basic principles, such as full transparency about the basis for any green claims.

Simplistic and potentially far-reaching assumptions about the approaches that would be likely to have positive social or environmental impacts should be avoided in the absence of convincing research.

• A summary of the project and its main outcomes can be found at Assuring Consumer Confidence in Ethical Trade ?The Ethical Trade Fact-Finding Process (ETFP) Summary (pdf, September 2010).