Already green or still greenwashing?

Consumers increasingly base their purchasing decisions on the values of a brand, and much less on the (often interchangeable) products themselves. Although sustainability is usually not the deciding factor in purchasing a product, by emphasizing the value of ‘sustainability’ in its marketing, a company can score a few extra points in its favor.

What to focus on?

Every end customer sets different priorities: climate protection, animal welfare, packaging, or the health megatrend. The art for the brand lies in balancing what is appealing to the customer and the effect on the environment. For the best value, brands try to find what benefits both the most. However, this often makes the product expensive or even impossible to sell.

For example, if a brand decides to focus on significantly reducing animal suffering, it would need to source 100% of its meat from sustainable, cruelty-free sources. Although expensive, it is a feasible solution that allows a brand to back up its claims of reducing animal suffering.

Or if brands focus on climate protection, they should be aware of the ‘purchase’ of CO2 emissions right across the supply chain: starting with raw materials and pre-products. This means that, if the brand in the supply chain lowers the ecological footprint through a clever selection of local ingredients (for instance, potato instead of sweet potato) or more energy-extensive production processes (gentle air-drying instead of freeze-drying), then the environment is helped more than by (also sensible) waste separation in the canteen.

What this teaches us is that it is important to have a holistic point-of-view regarding the business model. If, for example, the entire business is based on meat-containing products, it is simply not credible to advertise the low carbon footprint of the one or two vegan products in the product range and claim to be a low carbon-emitting company.

When does greenwashing begin?

When making a purchasing decision, consumers will always balance different values. In case a consumer values both health and climate, they might consider feeding their dog a vegan diet.

In such a case, simply assessing the brand for the authenticity of its messaging and stringency in execution makes the choice for a product easy for consumers. It can be even easier for the consumer if a brand is fully committed to enabling a vegan dog diet. Trusting such a brand and considering it as being more justified, comes naturally for the consumer who can safely assume this brand fits his needs. But once you start looking for the answer to the question as to how brands should balance advertising claims with the ingredients they use and advertise, it can quickly get much more complicated.

Tricky

For example, using by-product meat is not much worse than using poultry products in terms of carbon footprint. But it gets tricky in advertising or packaging. Using images of lean meat – like a steak – signals that the product relies on ‘clean’ ingredients and hence is more attractive to the consumer. Yet, it also means the use of ingredients with a higher carbon footprint.

Without regulations, it is up to the manufacturer how to balance this. And for the consumer, it is not a simple task to decipher what is truly sustainable.

Informed decisions

An independent label or award for product sustainability in the pet food sector would make it much easier for consumers to make an informed decision. And it would put brands that are advertised as climate-neutral or even climate-positive to the test.

At the end of the day, it is the pet owner who decides. And brands beware! Lies have short legs.