Consumers should be ready to treat eco-friendly claims with caution - not every product does exactly what it says on the box. BRIAN O'CONNELLreports
WRITING IN the Guardiannewspaper's new weekly column, Greenwash, Fred Pearce recently harked back to the days of no-holds-barred advertising where anything went. It was a time, Pearce notes, "when drinking alcohol made you sexy, when smoking cigarettes was good for your lungs and when every washing powder contained a magic ingredient that made your whites super-white".
When it comes to modern-day "green advertising" though, some are now saying that such fanciful claims are making a comeback. With society demanding goods that are environmentally aware, more and more companies are keen to talk up the green credentials of their products, and there are some claiming that things are not always as they seem.
Brian Meaney, a councillor with the Green Party in Ennis, believes that the issue is raising its head in Ireland. As a member of a board of management of a school in Co Clare, Meaney's antennae were raised when a company, Energy Savings Systems, made the following offer in its advance brochure: "We will reduce your heating bills by 30 per cent by fitting radiator reflector panels."
Meaney wasn't convinced by the claim and sought evidence from the company to support the claims made in its literature. "I asked for reference documentation and the company refused," Meaney says. "I also contacted two of the organisations mentioned as having tested the product and they too were unable to provide me with the testing documentation. I dismissed the claims and, rather than walk away, I forwarded the leaflet to the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) and left it there since."
The ASAI confirms that it has received a complaint and is currently investigating the allegation.
Energy Savings Systems is run by Malachy Donnellan. The company says it reduces heating bills by installing reflector panels on walls behind radiators, thereby retaining heat by blocking it being lost through walls. It describes itself a "must for Green Flag schools" and encourages customers to "Go Green, Stay Green". It boasts 20,000 satisfied customers in the last 10 years and cites the Galway/Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) and other institutions where product-testing was carried out.
The company also claims to have supplied 90 per cent of nursing homes in Ireland with a product it has been working on for 15 years. Donnellan dismisses Cllr Meaney's concerns.
"This product was originally in France and Canada," he says, "and we are the only ones in Ireland manufacturing it." However, he declined to supply documented evidence to support these claims, or to answer a set of written questions regarding the company's testing claims and how the product was developed, stating that the company needs to protect itself "from people trying to get information from us and educating themselves about how the product works and copying it".
Donnellan did, however, provide a list of several schools in Co Clare which have installed the product. Among them is St Mochulla's primary school in Tulla, where principal Brian Torpey confirms that the school is satisfied. "It stops the heat from going into the wall and reflects it back out around the room. We notice the radiators are hotter for longer. I don't know what the actual cost savings are, though - we would need to sit down with our accountant and factor in all the costs such as purchase and installation versus the reduction in heating bills."
In a section entitled, "Independent Proof is your Guarantee", the Energy Savings Systems brochure cites GMIT and Queen's University Belfast (QUB), where it says the testing of the product was carried out in the late 1990s. In GMIT, it says two separate trials were undertaken in June 1998, adding that copies of these reports are available "to interested parties." Despite requests, the company did not provide copies of either report.
GMIT confirms that it was commissioned to investigate the findings of a QUB report, although due to the lapse of time, it is unable to find a copy of the original report. "We did not comment on the expected overall reduction in heating bills. Our work was confined to reviewing the figures given in the report, which centred on the heat loss through the wall directly behind the reflective panel," says a spokeperson.
Gerard O'Donnell, senior lecturer in mechanical engineering at GMIT, confirms he tested the product 10 years ago. "We didn't do any physical modelling," he says, "and the claim of reducing heating bills by 30 per cent sounds a bit high. Perhaps it cuts down heat loss behind a radiator by 30 per cent, but there's no way it reduces the heat loss in a house by that much."
Meanwhile, Queens University also says that it currently has no record of the study.
ANDY WILSON, EDITOR of Sustainability Magazineadvises customers to verify all claims independently and ask for documentary evidence from companies. He says customers should also be wary of blanket statements. "I've always been aware of a certain level of complaints in this area, but more recently we have seen more of a diversity of complaints. There is a huge need for independent testing in this sector. If people think something is suspicious and if a company is not playing ball, then they should report it and give the company some bad publicity which might make it think twice about exaggerating its green credentials." He says that companies making claims they can't stand over are scoring commercial own-goals. He says there is a huge need for independent assessment of green credentials being announced by companies. "It might do them some good in the short term, but it does the sector no benefit in the long run." Wilson has a section on his website (sustainability.ie) where he encourages customers to log their experiences of green hyperbole, which he in turn will investigate.
"I've come across this in a whole range of renewables, such as solar thermal industry where some companies claim to be able to give you huge savings on heating bills," says Wilson. "In many cases, companies claim that a 60 per cent saving can be made on domestic hot water costs through installing their product. Our experience is that these savings can only be made in very limited situations."
Wilson believes a point came in the last two to three years when an environmental perspective on life became not just a fringe phenomenon, but more mainstream thinking.
"Companies saw that they could make big profits capitalising on the public's desire to do good," Wilson says. He adds that these companies then jumped on the back of green phrases and theories doing the rounds, and cites the environmental buzz phrase of 'carbon neutral' as example. "Three years ago nobody would have known about that phrase," he says, "Really, what it relates to is the idea you can offset carbon emissions by buying into a project in some other part of the world which will allegedly save the same amount of carbon you are responsible for emitting. Tree planting is often used to offset carbon by airline, travel companies, and also music and arts festivals."
The way they calculate these claims, he says, is by calculating the carbon cost of their event.
"This may or may not include everything, such as the cost of people driving to the event. Trees are then planted according to the carbon emitted, so they calculate that one tree takes x amount, and then multiply it by the number of years it will remain. But the process is so flawed.
"It doesn't take account of the carbon uptake of the land before the trees were planted say. There is also a presumption that every tree will survive to maturity. If you take Ireland, we know that over 90 per cent of trees planted in most forests will be thinned out. There is also no way of knowing what will happen to land in the future and there is a chance that all the trees might be chopped down. The problem is that people want to believe it's true. So people who enjoy taking holidays abroad and using air travel like to think there is an easy answer to it."
ECO SPIN TOO GREEN TO BE TRUE?
Green Spin Green Coal- The idea of clean coal gained prominence with the help of George W Bush, among others. Currently, the UK is toying with plans to approve a "cleaner coal" power station, while an industry association in the US is calling itself the "American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity". Fred Pearce says the idea of clean coal is akin to the "safe cigarette" or "atoms for peace". While coal may be cleaned up a little, the reality is that coal emits more CO2 per unit than any other fuel.
Eco Car Magnets- Several companies in the UK and the US have been promoting economising car magnets. Magnets are shaped so they can be put on to the fuel line of the car and the claim is that it will reduce both fuel use and carbon emissions. One company in the US claimed a 27 per cent reduction in fuel use. Several companies have been reported to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK, including Ecoflow, with the ASA concluding that the company's testing was "flawed and that the results did not prove the efficacy of the Eco fuel economiser".