2019 was the busiest year to date for Two Sides’ Anti-greenwash campaign with 131 organisations removing or changing misleading statements about print and paper’s impact on the environment.
Two Sides found a total of 388 organisations, located throughout Europe, North and South America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, making unsubstantiated claims and worked directly with 30 to remove or amend their messages. Those 30 included household names Aviva, Nationwide, NatWest and, ironically Adobe, who started the desktop publishing revolution in the 1980s and whose tools are in use in prepress studios at every printer, as well as over a dozen local councils.
In ongoing efforts to cut costs, many banks, telecom providers, utility companies and even governmental organisations are encouraging their customers to switch to digital services by using unfounded environmental claims such as ‘go green – go paperless.’
‘Not only are these claims in breach of advertising rules, but they are hugely damaging to an industry which has a solid and continually improving environmental record,’ said Two Sides’ Jonathan Tame. ‘A healthy market for forest products such as paper encourages the long-term growth of forests through sustainable forest management. Many of the organisations we engage are always surprised to learn than European forests have actually been growing by 1500 football pitches every day.
‘Tackling greenwash is an ongoing challenge that requires significant resource to research, monitor and engage so many organisations. Because of the huge reach of some of these organisations, these unsubstantiated claims about paper have a damaging effect on consumer perceptions of paper. For this reason, the Anti-greenwash campaign will continue to be a priority of Two Sides. We are grateful for the cooperation of the hundreds of organisations we have worked with in recent years. We are also thankful for the many industry stakeholders and members of the public who send Two Sides examples of greenwash.’
