For more than a decade, the Two Sides Anti-Greenwash campaign has challenged misleading environmental claims that unfairly slander the environmental performance of paper communications and paper-based packaging. Today, the campaign has reached another milestone, with 1,500 organisations worldwide removing or amending unsubstantiated anti-paper statements following engagement with Two Sides.
While the Anti-Greenwash campaign initially focused on misleading claims encouraging consumers to abandon paper communications, the scope of the campaign has expanded alongside changing market trends. Increasingly, Two Sides is seeing environmental claims relating to paper-based packaging, including unsupported statements suggesting that alternative fibre materials are inherently more sustainable than paper from responsibly managed forests, or that eliminating paper packaging automatically reduces environmental impact. As with all environmental claims, these statements should be supported by robust, independently verifiable evidence.
These claims also carry a significant economic impact. Europe’s print, paper, packaging and forestry sectors support more than 640,000 jobs across 112,000 businesses. Research commissioned by Two Sides found that greenwashing could cost the European mailing and postal sector alone more than €337 million annually through reduced paper volumes and declining consumer confidence.
“The success of this campaign demonstrates that organisations are willing to listen when presented with credible evidence,” says Jonathan Tame, Managing Director of Two Sides Europe. “Most businesses don’t deliberately set out to mislead consumers. However, environmental claims must be based on facts, not assumptions or marketing slogans. Suggesting that choosing digital automatically saves trees or is always the greener option oversimplifies a complex issue and risks undermining consumer trust.”
In Europe alone, Two Sides has persuaded more than 950 organisations, including many well know big brands such as; Acerta, Barclays, TSB and more, to withdraw misleading anti-paper messaging from their communications.
Two Sides encourages businesses to review any communications that discourage the use of paper on environmental grounds and ensure they are supported by credible scientific evidence.
Illustration: Two Sides
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