Examples of greenwashing, according to a March 2022 analysis by mechanical engineers Grant Faber and Volker Sick of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor include labeling plastic garbage bags as recyclable when their whole purpose is to be thrown away using labels such as “eco-friendly” or “100% Natural” without official certification and claiming a better carbon footprint without acknowledging the existence of even better choices. In the rush to create products that can be touted as fighting climate change, however, some firms have been accused of “ greenwashing” – making products or companies appear more environmentally friendly than they really are. It’s a mind-bogglingly difficult metric, but such bean-counting is needed to hold the planet to a livable temperature, says low-carbon systems expert Andrea Ramirez Ramirez of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. But what about the energy cost of cooling the CO 2 into liquid form and transporting it to a production facility? And what about when your kid outgrows the shoes in six months and they can’t be recycled into a new product because those systems aren’t in place yet?Īs companies try to reduce their carbon footprint, many are doing life cycle assessments to quantify the full carbon cost of products, from procurement of materials to energy use in manufacturing to product transport to user behavior and end-of-life disposal. There’s the fossil fuel that stayed in the ground, a definite carbon savings. But measuring the carbon-reduction benefits of making that pair of sneakers with CO 2 is complex. Today, you can buy a pair of sneakers partially made from carbon dioxide pulled out of the atmosphere.
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