As a supporter of Two Sides, we are pleased to announce that the greenwash campaign has now influenced more than 700 companies to remove misleading statements that digital communication is better for the environment.
With huge pressures on the economy, banks, telecom providers, utility companies and even governmental organisations are increasingly focused on switching their customers from paper to digital services to cut costs. All too often their customer communications attempt to mask these cost-saving efforts, justifying the switch with unfounded environmental marketing appeals such as “Go Green – Go Paperless” and “Choose e-billing and help save a tree.”
These greenwash claims are in breach of established environmental marketing rules, and hugely damaging to an industry with a solid and continually improving environmental record, employing 1,096,000 people in more than 115,700 businesses in the EU and UK.
Globally in 2020, Two Sides engaged 320 organisations making misleading statements about paper, influencing 134 of them to remove such statements from their communications. This includes well-known European companies such as; Eon, Marks and Spencer, Sparkasse, Volksbank-Raiffeisenbank, BHV/Le Marais and SNCF.
This brings the total to 710 companies that have removed misleading greenwashing statements since the campaign began in 2010.
Read the full press release here
Two Sides will continue to actively challenge major organisations found to be misleading consumers by using environmental claims about the use of paper. Please send any instances of greenwash to [email protected]