Mendacious markets: Coca-Cola, TerraCycle and others face fresh greenwashing backlash in new report

30 Jun 2022 --- Major brands and retailers are once again being accused of greenwashing their plastic packaging, with a new interactive website set up by the Changing Markets Foundation describing how companies like Coca-Cola, P&G, Sainsbury’s and TerraCycle dupe consumers into believing their products are environmentally sustainable.

Displayed on the website – www.greenwash.com – over a dozen plastics companies were found making sustainability claims without proof, most commonly about how products are created with “ocean-bound” or recyclable properties.

George Harding-Rolls, campaign manager at Changing Markets Foundations, remarks: “Our latest investigation exposes a litany of misleading and mendacious claims from household names consumers should be able to trust.”

“This is just the tip of the iceberg, and it is of crucial importance that regulators take this issue seriously. The industry is happy to gloat its green credentials with little substance on the one hand while continuing to perpetuate the plastic crisis on the other.”

“We are calling out greenwashing so the world can see that voluntary action has led to a market saturated with false claims. We must embrace systemic solutions, such as absolute reductions in plastic packaging and mandatory deposit return systems.” Coca-Cola is accused of creating the waste it uses to advertise green credentials.

Coca-Cola faces heat
Some prominent examples of greenwashed items listed by Changing Markets Foundations are Coca-Cola’s bottles made with marine-based plastic, which the company says is composed of 25% ocean-recovered trash.

The report says this is “ironic” since Coca-Cola is regularly found to be the worst plastic packaging polluter on earth, with Break Free From Plastics placing the company as the number one source of ocean litter worldwide four years in a row.

Changing Markets Foundations also accuses Coca-Cola of continued lobbying efforts to prevent Extended Producer Responsibility schemes. Last year, it released a report on how FMCGs like Coca-Cola also used Spanish nonprofit organization Ecoembes to derail Deposit Return Schemes.

“Favorite” greenwashing tool
Also listed on Changing Markets Foundations’ new website is TerraCycle, which has faced growing public scrutiny over the past year after its take-back recycling scheme in the UK was found working with a sanctioned waste handler and bales of its trash were discovered near an incineration site in Bulgaria. At least 11M metric tons of plastic waste reportedly enters the oceans every year.

Changing Markets Foundations calls TerraCycle “The plastic polluters’ favorite greenwashing tool,” claiming the company’s logo is used “with abandon” by practically every major FMCG brand to convey environmental sustainability and convince consumers that unrecyclable materials will be recycled using advanced methods.

“Daylight robbery”
Sian Sutherland, co-founder of UK-based nonprofit A Plastic Planet, says: “Plastic is now a very powerful and emotional word, we all feel the plastic guilt when we fill our shopping baskets. Brands have been exploiting this over recent years, using age-old marketing techniques that are totally misleading or downright fake, pretending that the problem is being fixed when actually it is getting worse with plastic production set to treble by 2040.”

“Greenwash.com exposes these false green claims for what they are, daylight robbery of the consumer’s right and ability to judge the product. It shines a light on how desperate brands and retailers are to maintain business as usual while they mislead consumers into thinking they are making ethical choices.”

“We need to turn off the plastic tap once and for all before the plastic waste crisis spirals beyond control, but to achieve this, we first must pressure global brands into fessing up to their plastic addiction. Shoppers must no longer be kept in the dark about the reality of plastic in their purchases.”

By Louis Gore-Langton

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