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If you’re trying to purchase from sustainable companies, maybe you’ve come across carbon-neutral shipping, clothes, or electronics. Practically any organization can make such claims—although some countries are cracking down on this—and offer a “carbon-neutral” certificate. Over 100 such certificates exist worldwide.
\n\n\n\nThe CarbonNeutral certificate offered by the private company Climate Impact Partners (CIP) is a popular option. Launched in 2002, it’s one of the oldest frameworks of its kind and has been adopted by companies ranging from Microsoft to Yorkshire Tea. But in a sea of similar-looking certificates, is CarbonNeutral certification a useful indicator of eco-friendliness?
\n\n\n\n“Carbon neutral” doesn’t mean a company or product has zero emissions, though it’s easy to slip into that misunderstanding with the CarbonNeutral certificate: its website says that to achieve carbon neutrality, a carbon footprint is calculated then reduced to zero. In reality, to make something carbon neutral, a company first quantifies its greenhouse gas emissions. Then it reduces them and offsets what remains.
\n\n\n\nCompanies with the certification calculate, disclose, reduce, and offset emissions from specific products, services, or activities, or the company as a whole using the CarbonNeutral Protocol, a climate action framework developed by CIP. CIP revises it annually and says it is based on the latest scientific and industrial research. To maintain active certifications, organizations must continuously adapt to new requirements.
\n\n\n\nThe protocol has five steps: definition, measurement, target setting, emissions reduction, and communication.
\n\n\n\nFirst, companies decide what to certify: A specific product? An activity, like flights or hotel stays? Or an entity, like an entire organization or an office building?
\n\n\n\nNext, a third-party assessment expert measures emissions associated with whatever is being certified using an international standard, such as the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard or the Climate Registry’s General Reporting Protocol. The calculation doesn’t just cover carbon. It accounts for all greenhouse gases recognized under the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, like methane and hydrofluorocarbons. (If the company measures emissions itself, CIP requires a third-party expert to check those calculations.)
\n\n\n\nLaunched in 2002, the CarbonNeutral certificate is one of the oldest frameworks of its kind.
Third, companies choose an emission reduction strategy from a few options, including the Science Based Targets initiative, which helps companies reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. They are also encouraged to join the Race to Zero, a coalition of companies and other entities working to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
\n\n\n\nAn important caveat: until recently, only companies with annual footprints over a certain threshold had to choose a reduction strategy—though that threshold has been cut from the 2024 update to the protocol.
\n\n\n\nNext, companies that commit to actual emission reductions must follow through, using strategies like switching to renewable energy or electric vehicles. Whatever emissions remain unabated are offset via carbon credits.
\n\n\n\nFinally, CIP grants the company license to use a CarbonNeutral certification logo.
\n\n\n\nUnfortunately, a few companies with the CarbonNeutral certificate have been linked to greenwashing. In addition, carbon offsets—a key component of carbon-neutral claims—are famously unregulated. One 2023 study of almost 300 carbon offset projects found major shortcomings in the projects’ claims, including delayed emissions, rather than actual reductions, and over-crediting. Last year, the European Union banned offset-based claims that a company or product has a neutral impact on the environment. And one carbon credit provider, the Switzerland-based company myclimate, stopped offering a “carbon-neutral” label entirely, saying that offsets can’t credibly prop up climate-neutral claims.
\n\n\n\nKate Ervine, an expert on global carbon markets and offsets at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, says many companies’ carbon-neutral claims lack transparency, credibility, and integrity. She points to the 2023 Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor, which assessed 24 companies’ climate pledges and found that only five had committed to “deep decarbonization.”
\n\n\n\nMore fundamentally, though, critics—including Ervine, The Guardian editorial board, and Greenpeace—charge that offsets are a means for companies to continue polluting, rather than making sacrifices that reduce emissions.
\n\n\n\nCIP has quality control measures, but Ervine pointed to potential concerns with CIP offsets. For example, Guardian research into Verra, a certification body that verifies CIP offset projects, found that over 90% of Verra’s rainforest offset credits do not represent genuine carbon reductions because they didn’t meaningfully reduce deforestation. Verra has contested this claim.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Carbon-Neutral-Logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
Additionally, a CIP carbon-offset project gives families in countries like Bangladesh and Kenya efficient gas stoves to replace smokier wood- or charcoal-burning ones that account for roughly 2% of annual global greenhouse emissions. However, a 2023 study in Nature examined 40% of “clean cooking” credits on the market and found their impact was over-credited by about nine times.
\n\n\n\nIt’s worth noting that CIP—like many carbon-neutral certification organizations—sells carbon credits. That could make for a conflict of interest, according to authors Vanessa Rauland and Peter Newman in their 2015 book Decarbonising Cities. Here’s their logic: when carbon-neutral certification companies sell offsets, they have less incentive to push companies toward rigorous emission reductions because that’ll hamper potential sales.
\n\n\n\nCIP could also improve its transparency. It publishes a white paper of certified products, but that hasn’t been updated for almost three years. Its website also doesn’t identify what companies have certification—instead, it offers examples of companies “benefitting from credible climate action.” One of these, Microsoft, has claimed to be carbon neutral since 2012, but the Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor published by the NewClimate Institute, a German think tank, says that claim is misleading: it only applied to 7% of Microsoft’s emissions in 2019.
\n\n\n\nIn fact, Microsoft is an example of how carbon-neutral certificates can give companies the marketing boost and credibility associated with eco-friendliness while they sidestep serious emission reduction measures. Microsoft committed to a 30% reduction in its 2007 carbon emissions by 2012, but when the company wasn’t on track, it sought CarbonNeutral certification to protect its reputation, explains Frances Bowen, a researcher who studies corporate environmental strategy at Queen Mary University of London, in a 2017 paper. Upon request for comment, a Microsoft representative wrote, “Microsoft has nothing to share at this time.”
\n\n\n\nIn an email to Asparagus, a CIP representative said emission reductions take time and offsets permit companies to take responsibility for emissions immediately. “Companies that offset emissions put a price of carbon into their business, driving greater internal reductions,” the CIP representative wrote, citing research from Sylvera, Ecosystem Marketplace and Trov that companies using carbon credits reduce emissions more than companies that don’t. The email also said the voluntary carbon market is constantly evolving, and Verra’s methodology has recently been updated. As for Asparagus’ criticisms of CIP’s transparency, CIP wrote, “We are led by our clients and their decisions whether to talk publicly about their climate action.”
\n\n\n\nPeople often ask Ervine of Saint Mary’s University which climate certifications she recommends. “My recommendation would actually be that we want to be wary of certifications,” she says. She believes it’s more helpful to ask ourselves whether we actually need a product or to support organizations doing meaningful climate work.
\n\n\n\nAs for companies, she says, rather than claiming carbon neutrality and relying on questionable offsets, it might be more helpful to be honest about emissions.
\n\n\n\nOffset-based carbon neutrality remains questionable and seems more helpful for marketing than the climate.
\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2187,"template":"","meta":[],"categories":[11,46,12,29,10,6,23],"tags":[128,512,117,71,159,298],"class_list":["post-2186","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change","category-economy","category-energy","category-know-logo","category-magazine","category-planet","category-start-small","tag-business","tag-carbon-footprint","tag-certification","tag-climate-crisis","tag-corporations","tag-jadine-ngan"],"yoast_head":"\nCorporations like Microsoft and IBM have made bold but dubious claims about reducing their carbon footprint.
\n"},"alt_text":"A rectangular glass-covered building with Microsoft's logo in Germany. Behind are 2 towers with the IBM and Fujitsu logos.","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image/jpeg","media_details":{"width":1333,"height":1000,"file":"2024/05/Microsoft-Germany-HQ-Munich.jpg","filesize":393495,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"Microsoft-Germany-HQ-Munich-300x225.jpg","width":300,"height":225,"filesize":25330,"mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Microsoft-Germany-HQ-Munich-300x225.jpg"},"large":{"file":"Microsoft-Germany-HQ-Munich-1024x768.jpg","width":1024,"height":768,"filesize":223320,"mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Microsoft-Germany-HQ-Munich-1024x768.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"Microsoft-Germany-HQ-Munich-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"filesize":10300,"mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Microsoft-Germany-HQ-Munich-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"Microsoft-Germany-HQ-Munich-768x576.jpg","width":768,"height":576,"filesize":132167,"mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Microsoft-Germany-HQ-Munich-768x576.jpg"},"full":{"file":"Microsoft-Germany-HQ-Munich.jpg","width":1333,"height":1000,"mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Microsoft-Germany-HQ-Munich.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Microsoft-Germany-HQ-Munich.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/2187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/attachment"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=2187"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":11,"link":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/category/planet/climate-change/","name":"Climate Change","slug":"climate-change","taxonomy":"category","yoast_head":"\nWhen I think about the impacts my travels have had, my mind immediately goes to the massive, gas-guzzling, carbon-spewing aluminum tube I boarded to get to my destinations. Aviation is the most obvious culprit for travel-related emissions, accounting for 12% of the global carbon footprint of tourism. But accommodations, along with transportation, food, and shopping, also factor into your vacation emissions. And, of course, the effects of travel are far greater than just its carbon footprint. Examples include overcrowding, environmental degradation, and resource shortages. This intricacy is part of why planning and fact-checking your trip’s impacts can get tricky.
\n\n\n\nSustainable-travel certifications to the rescue, right? Not quite. Behold: the overwhelming number of certifications available globally. The sheer volume of schemes can leave would-be sustainable travelers confused, frustrated, and wary. This problem has spurred recent efforts by big industry players to simplify matters. One such initiative is Travalyst, a coalition founded in 2019 by Prince Harry, which is bringing together companies from Booking.com to Google and Visa to make sustainable travel “mainstream.”
\n\n\n\nThe effects of travel include overcrowding, environmental degradation, and resource shortages.
If there’s a laundry list of certifications available for every possible trip, how do you narrow it down to one? Which ones are even trustworthy? And what actually goes into certifying a hotel, tour, or destination as “sustainable”?
\n\n\n\nThe Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) was formed to bring some order to this complexity by setting baseline criteria for sustainability in tourism. But it’s been a bumpy road, thanks to an industry that’s fragmented, unprepared, and in some cases unwilling to buy in.
\n\n\n\nThe GSTC is a non-profit organization formed in 2010 from a merger of two previous groups: the Sustainable Tourism Stewardship Council (founded in 2009), and the Partnership for Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria, which was formed in 2007 by the UN Environment Programme, the UN Foundation, the UN World Tourism Organization, and the Rainforest Alliance.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/SustainableTravel_WebBody1.jpg\")
The GSTC maintains the GSTC Criteria, which, according to the organization’s website, “serve as the global standards for sustainability in travel and tourism” and are “the result of a worldwide effort to develop a common language about sustainability in tourism.” These criteria are meant to be followed by groups establishing sustainable-travel certification schemes of different kinds.
\n\n\n\nIn theory, the GSTC is funded by a mix of donations, sponsorships, and membership fees from organizations (like tour operators, tourism agencies, and certification bodies), along with revenue from running summits, trade events, and training programs for individuals and companies. In reality, though, donations and sponsorships are “negligible,” writes GSTC CEO Randy Durband in an email. The organization “hasn’t received meaningful financial support since 2012,” and most revenue now comes from training, events, and memberships.
\n\n\n\nThere are two sets of GSTC Criteria: Industry Criteria for organizations that certify hotels or tour operators, and Destination Criteria for programs that certify cities, regions, and national parks. Both sets contain four broad categories: sustainable management, socio-economic benefits to local communities, cultural-heritage protection, and environmental sustainability. The specifics within these categories vary depending on which set of criteria you’re looking at, but common threads include having robust monitoring and reporting systems, supporting local business, protecting sensitive environments, and managing tourists’ interactions with wildlife.
\n\n\n\nTourism groups that have developed their own sustainable-travel standards (like Ottawa-based Green Key Global’s Eco-Rating) can submit them to the GSTC for recognition. The GSTC’s independent Assurance Panel (consisting mostly of industry consultants focusing on sustainability) reviews them. If they deem a group’s standard equivalent to the GSTC’s own criteria, the panel designates it “GSTC-Recognized.” This designation is for the standard itself, not the organization that submitted it. When assessing any standard for recognition, the GSTC “looks ONLY at the words in a standard,” writes Durband. Currently, the GSTC lists 43 total recognized standards.
\n\n\n\nAviation is the most obvious culprit for travel-related emissions, but accommodations, transport, food, and shopping also factor in.
Accreditation, on the other hand, looks at the process that certification bodies use to certify businesses and destinations. A “certification body” is an organization that certifies hotels, tour operators, or destinations based on one or more recognized sustainability standard(s). The GSTC doesn’t do any certifying itself. Instead, it accredits a certification body—such as Netherlands-based Green Destinations—and that body in turn certifies hotels or other tourism businesses.
\n\n\n\nLike all credible sustainability certifiers, the GSTC doesn’t accredit in-house: that process is conducted by a third party—Germany-based Assurance Services International (ASI)—to reduce the risk of conflicts of interest. According to Durband, ASI takes at least a year to look beyond the words in a standard and examine the procedures that the body being accredited uses to certify businesses or destinations with its standard(s). To be accredited, a body needs to prove that the process whereby it certifies businesses or destinations uses “transparent and impartial certification procedures, and auditors who are technically competent in sustainable tourism.” To date, only six certification bodies have been accredited: Bureau Veritas, Control Union, UCSL, Vireo, EarthCheck, and Green Destinations.
\n\n\n\nCertification by one of these bodies is where the GSTC’s criteria finally reach the consumer. In the same way you’d look for a Fair Trade mark on your coffee beans, you can look for, say, a Green Destinations Certified mark on your chosen destination package.
\n\n\n\nA key challenge the GSTC has faced is that travelers do want more sustainable products and services, according to Durband, but they don’t ask for them when they are shopping for hotels, flights, and travel packages. At that point, they’re focused on price. “This leads many businesses to conclude that travelers don’t care about sustainability, which is not the case,” he writes.
\n\n\n\nMeanwhile, for some tourism businesses—especially small ones—a lack of demand isn’t the only thing preventing them from getting certified and implementing sustainable standards; it’s a lack of resources. For family-owned guest houses in Japan, known as minshuku, certification presents a real financial burden, says Dr. Kumi Kato, a professor in the Faculty of Tourism at Wakayama University, and a member of the GSTC’s board of directors.
\n\n\n\nKato says that sustainable tourism became a priority for the Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) after it started focusing on travel as a way to revitalize the economy. With population decline throwing rural Japan into economic hardship, tourism was seen as a way to boost these communities. But while the JTA kept promoting travel to these areas, local communities were unprepared for the influx of travelers and suffered from overtourism.
\n\n\n\nFor some small tourism businesses, certification presents a real financial burden.
In 2019, to address some of those impacts, the JTA formed a committee to develop a sustainable-travel standard that could be applied throughout Japan. Kato served as the committee’s chair, and they chose the GSTC Destinations Criteria as their starting point. But in order for the standard to make any sense for small businesses like minshuku, Kato says they needed to translate the broad policy guidelines of the criteria into specific questions such as “Do you have rules about recycling? Do you have good appliances? Do you use renewable energy? Do you compost?”
\n\n\n\nKato adds that while she has seen certifying bodies work closely with their clients to provide useful information, she has also seen instances where certification looks more like an extractive business. “Some places will say ‘Okay, you’ve achieved bronze. Next, silver. Next, gold.’ And then it gets more and more expensive [for the client].”
\n\n\n\nDr. Harold Goodwin—a professor emeritus at Manchester Metropolitan University and founder of the UK-based Responsible Tourism Partnership—says that certifications can actually hinder effective communication between certifier, hotel, and traveler.
\n\n\n\n“If you’ve got a problem,” Goodwin says, “the hotel will tell you ‘Well, we didn’t certify the hotel, this certification company did.’ But you’ve got no case against the certification company, since you have no contract with them. So you can’t get compensation.” In Goodwin’s experience, it’s common for certified hotels to still have energy-wasting practices, such as providing extra key cards to leave in the room’s electricity card slot while you’re out, so the air conditioning stays on and keeps the room cool.
\n\n\n\nIt’s about what you do, rather than what you say you do.
For him, certification needs to build in an additional element of accountability to ensure that it truly indicates sustainable practices. Instead of being left to trust certification, travelers should be able to easily find out how much water, power, or other resources a hotel uses, and weigh their accommodations options with that information. “I don’t know anywhere in the world you can find that out,” Goodwin says. “It’s about taking responsibility. It’s about what you do, rather than what you say you do.”
\n\n\n\nThe GSTC’s aims make sense. By creating a universal baseline for sustainability, they’ve established something to check the industry against. “Certification doesn’t happen without a standard,” Durband writes. Without organizations like the GSTC, there wouldn’t be a starting point to assess, much less improve, how planet-friendly the tourism industry is. But the mammoth task of verifying that the GSTC’s criteria lead to more sustainable travel options currently falls to a handful of accredited certifiers. So for now, it remains very hard for travelers to take advantage of the GSTC’s criteria to plan sustainable travel.
\n\n\n\nA common language for sustainable travel sounds great, but so far it’s getting lost in translation.
\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1503,"template":"","meta":[],"categories":[29,8,10,23,41],"tags":[365,141,283,364],"class_list":["post-1479","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-know-logo","category-living","category-magazine","category-start-small","category-travel","tag-economy","tag-nature","tag-sun-woo-baik","tag-tourism"],"yoast_head":"\nIf you shop for makeup or skin care products — regardless of whether you keep up with new releases or still use products bought on sale two years ago (guilty!) — you have likely come across brands touting their “clean” offerings.
\n\n\n\nThere is no official definition of “clean beauty.” In general, products labeled this way replace potentially harmful synthetics with natural ingredients. These can be organic (produced without harmful pesticides), natural (sourced from nature and minimally modified), naturally derived (sourced from nature with some chemical modification), chemical-free (sans any synthetic chemicals), non-toxic (free of harmful chemicals like formaldehyde, lead, etc.), or green (produced in an environmentally friendly way). “Clean” can also refer to product packaging made with sustainable materials and methods. The implication is that “clean” products are better for us, and probably the planet too.
\n\n\n\nClean beauty products are not necessarily safer or better than other products.
Clean beauty’s popularity raises many questions. Are these products really better? Or is this term just another form of greenwashing at best, and scaremongering at worst?
\n\n\n\n“Clean beauty products are not necessarily safer or better than other products,” Dr. Brad A. Brod, a clinical professor of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania, told Asparagus via email. “[The phrase] gives consumers a false sense of security that a product with that label is safer than other products, and this is not based on evidence.”
\n\n\n\nSo, is there a way for consumers to verify that a brand and its products are truly less harmful than others? Enter the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
\n\n\n\nEWG is a non-profit, American lobbying group founded in 1993 by lobbyists who wanted to reform US chemical safety and agricultural laws. It educates shoppers about potentially harmful chemicals in products they use — ranging from food, to household products, to cosmetics — and lobbies for policies that prohibit or suppress the use of these chemicals. In 2004, EWG launched the online database Skin Deep to educate the public about potentially harmful chemicals in their products, followed by the EWG Verified label in 2015.
\n\n\n\nAccording to EWG’s 2020 annual report, the organization generated approximately US$13 million dollars in revenue. This included about US$4 million raised from foundations, and US$6 million from individual donations. Additionally, EWG earned US$2 million from licensing and consulting related to EWG Verified.
\n\n\n\nSkin Deep is an online database containing detailed information about the ingredients of over 60,000 cosmetic and personal-care products sold in the US, and potential human health hazards linked to their ingredients. Surprisingly for a group with “environmental” in the name, EWG doesn’t explicitly concern itself with ecological harms.
\n\n\n\nThe database gives each ingredient a data availability rating and a hazard or concern rating. The former refers to how much scientists know about an ingredient and its potential risks, while the latter refers to how hazardous it might be. Skin Deep gives products an overall rating based on a weighted average of its ingredients’ scores. For example, 16 of an unscented Dove soap bar’s 17 ingredients are rated low concern, while one is rated moderate concern, leading to an overall low-concern rating.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebBody.jpg\")
The EWG Verified mark on a product indicates that a company’s formulations and manufacturing processes meet EWG’s safety criteria. Currently, makeup and products for babies, hair, nails, oral hygiene, and skin can receive an EWG Verified label, though EWG is starting to include household products.
\n\n\n\nIf a company wants an EWG label on a product, it must disclose all the product’s ingredients, including fragrances and flavors. No certified product can contain any ingredients on EWG’s unacceptable or restricted lists, and all personal-care products must attain Skin Deep’s low-concern rating. EWG forbids all ingredients restricted by European regulators, who have stricter requirements than the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Products must also pass tests looking for potentially harmful microbes like E. coli.
\n\n\n\nThe company also needs to follow the European Union’s labeling guidelines for nanomaterials and ensure manufacturing practices in line with the FDA’s guidelines — which include assessing the sustainability of buildings, facilities, equipment, and raw materials. They must commit to submitting reports on product problems or serious adverse events — such as disfigurement, hospitalization or death — to both the FDA and EWG, as well as abide by any future changes in EWG’s unacceptable and restricted lists.
\n\n\n\nEWG’s ratings of “toxic” materials and the data available about them is sometimes inaccurate.
EWG charges companies a fee of US$250 to apply for the label. If an application is approved, the company must pay additional fees to use EWG Verified. Ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars per year, fees vary depending on the company’s size, and the number and sales of EWG Verified products, among other factors, according to EWG’s website. Every three years, the company must seek recertification and pay a renewal fee to continue using the EWG verified logo on its product.
\n\n\n\nEWG is the sole body involved in verifying that a company is eligible for the logo and issuing the logo. Unlike all other eco-logos reviewed by Know Logo to date, EWG Verified does not depend on third-party certifiers or overseers to confirm that companies meet their standards. This lack of independent review could lead to conflict of interest: namely, EWG might certify products to collect certification fees, rather than because they’ve met a vigorous standard.
\n\n\n\nConsumers can buy EWG Verified products directly from brands’ websites, or find them at retailers like Whole Foods, Target, and Bed, Bath, and Beyond, among others. Well-known brands with EWG Verified products include Revlon, Olay, Herbal Essences and Almay.
\n\n\n\nEWG Verified seems like an easy way to verify if cosmetic and personal-care products are “clean.” The label forces companies to be completely transparent about all the ingredients in their products — including fragrances and flavors, which companies often don’t disclose since they’re considered trade secrets. This makes it easy for consumers to spot potential hidden allergens.
\n\n\n\nHowever, a product’s lack of an EWG Verified logo — or a high-concern rating on Skin Deep — doesn’t necessarily mean it’s unsafe. EWG’s ratings of “toxic” materials and the data available about them is sometimes inaccurate.
\n\n\n\nTake formaldehyde. Skin Deep rates four chemicals that release formaldehyde — diazolidinyl urea, imidazolidinyl urea, DMDM hydantoin, quaternium-15 — with toxicity scores of 5, 5, 6, and 7 , respectively. (Scores are out of 10, where 1 means “low hazard”). The Skin Deep website also states that the latter two are either known to be, or similar to, “human toxicant[s].”
\n\n\n\nHowever, this toxicity depends on the amount included in cosmetic products. “Many safe products contain formaldehyde-releasing preservatives which release extremely low levels of formaldehyde well beneath the threshold for safety,” explained UPenn’s Brod. “Small amount[s] of formaldehyde are in our bodies as a metabolic byproduct.”
\n\n\n\nParabens are another ingredient demonized by EWG and the clean beauty industry at large. A 2019 article on EWG’s website arguing against paraben-use in cosmetics states that “scientific studies suggest that parabens can disrupt hormones in the body and harm fertility and reproductive organs, affect birth outcomes, and increase the risk of cancer.”
\n\n\n\nTo encourage consumer distrust of substances that aren’t necessarily toxic risks crossing the line into fearmongering.
Brod explains, however, that there are hundreds of parabens, only a few of which are used in cosmetics. “The few used in the US personal-care products industry have been vetted and tested by experts and found to be safe and non-carcinogenic,” he explained, pointing out that both the Cosmetic Ingredient Review and FDA have found parabens used in personal care products safe.
\n\n\n\n“Studies in rats and yeast cells have shown parabens to be thousands to millions of times weaker than estradiol, an endogenous sex hormone,” says Brod about parabens’ potential to disrupt hormones (“endogenous” means it’s naturally produced within the body). “Given that women are exposed to much more potent natural estrogens, along with estrogens in oral contraceptive pills and even phytoestrogens in food, the extremely weak estrogenicity of parabens is unlikely to be meaningful.”
\n\n\n\nAdditionally, EWG’s credibility has been tainted by its history of overstating chemical risks — such as its annual “dirty dozen” list of fruits and vegetables high in pesticides. The list’s methodology does not “follow any established scientific procedures” according to a 2011 UC Davis study published in the Journal of Toxicology. The most recent version of EWG’s annual sunscreen guide suggests that Vitamin A, a common ingredient in many sunscreens, may cause “cancerous tumors when used on skin exposed to sunlight,” despite there being limited data to support this link.
\n\n\n\nSkin Deep also states that “companies are allowed to use almost any ingredient they wish without regard for how safe they are” since “the US government doesn’t review the toxicity of products.” Cosmetic products and ingredients in the US do not have to be approved by FDA to go to market; however, the FDA monitors cosmetic products and their ingredients and takes regulatory action against products “found to be in violation [of rules set by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act],” according to an email from FDA spokesperson Courtney Rhodes.
\n\n\n\nWhile motivating companies and governments to be more transparent about ingredients in cosmetics is beneficial to consumers, it’s important to remember that a substance’s toxicity often depends on its concentration. To encourage consumer distrust of substances that aren’t necessarily toxic at the right concentrations risks crossing the line into fearmongering.
\n\n\n\nEncourages transparency, but overstates some risks. Not third-party certified, or concerned with eco-hazards (despite the name).
\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1299,"template":"","meta":[],"categories":[19,29,8,10,23],"tags":[97,75,284],"class_list":["post-724","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fashion-beauty","category-know-logo","category-living","category-magazine","category-start-small","tag-beauty","tag-health","tag-zeahaa-rehman"],"yoast_head":"\nClean beauty’s popularity raises many questions. Are these products really better? Or is this term just another form of greenwashing at best, and scaremongering at worst? Enter Know Logo.
\n"},"alt_text":"Makeup brushes in a roll-up case, small containers, nail polish, and flowers spread out on a grey table.","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image/jpeg","media_details":{"width":1500,"height":1000,"file":"2022/09/Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebHeader.jpg","filesize":"305803","sizes":{"medium":{"file":"Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebHeader-300x200.jpg","width":300,"height":200,"filesize":"19093","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebHeader-300x200.jpg"},"large":{"file":"Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebHeader-1024x683.jpg","width":1024,"height":683,"filesize":"170850","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebHeader-1024x683.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebHeader-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"filesize":"8690","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebHeader-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebHeader-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512,"filesize":"102012","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebHeader-768x512.jpg"},"full":{"file":"Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebHeader.jpg","width":1500,"height":1000,"mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebHeader.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}},"source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Clean-Beauty-Standard_WebHeader.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/attachment"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1299"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":19,"link":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/category/living/fashion-beauty/","name":"Fashion & Beauty","slug":"fashion-beauty","taxonomy":"category","yoast_head":"\nEver notice a little green logo stamped on a package of paper or stack of plywood? These labels promise sustainable and ethical wood products — but are they all bark and no bite?
\n\n\n\nForests are disappearing at an alarming rate. Roughly 10% of the world’s forests have vanished since 2000, including some 411 million hectares between 2001 and 2020, according to nonprofit consortium Global Forest Watch. In 2019, a football-field-sized swathe of tropical rainforest disappeared every six seconds.
\n\n\n\nResearchers and environmentalists agree that certifications for sustainable forest management could be part of the solution. In North America, the major certifiers are the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). Here’s how they compare.
\n\n\n\nAfter the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro failed to produce a binding agreement to stop deforestation, disgruntled environmentalists, Indigenous groups, and timber-industry stakeholders united to address the issue. One year later, FSC was born.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebBody1.jpg\")
Its mission, according to François Dufresne, CEO of FSC Canada, is to use a market-powered system to halt deforestation, promote sustainable forest management, and protect workers and Indigenous communities. Companies that meet FSC’s sustainability standards and undergo routine audits are granted permission to stamp FSC’s logo on their products, for a fee. The idea was to encourage sustainability by making it profitable, on the understanding customers would pay more for certified products. And, for some companies, it worked.
\n\n\n\nToday, FSC has certified over 229 million hectares of forest in 89 countries — about the size of Saudi Arabia — and is probably the most prominent forest management certifier in the world. Its labels aren’t restricted to timber, but cover all forest products, from mushrooms to natural latex.
\n\n\n\nSFI was launched two years after FSC. It was originally a voluntary code of conduct for members of the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA), a US trade association. Today, SFI is a recognized certification system operating in the US and Canada. Even so, by 2020, SFI had certified over 150 million hectares of forest, an area slightly smaller than Mongolia.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebBody2.jpg\")
According to Jason Metnick, a senior vice president at SFI, the organization is dedicated not only to developing forest management standards and promoting conservation, but to improving communities, Indigenous relations, and sustainable forestry education.
\n\n\n\nFSC’s checkmark-tree logo comes in three versions: FSC 100%, when all a product’s materials come from certified forests; FSC Recycled for products made entirely from recycled goods; and FSC Mix, for products containing both certified new and recycled material.
\n\n\n\nIn order to use both certifiers’ labels, companies must undergo a strict application process and pay membership fees, as well as pass an audit by an independent organization, like the Canadian Standards Association. Using third-party certification bodies is important for eco-labels’ legitimacy, because it means the certification authority — which stands to receive fees from certified companies — doesn’t decide who gets approved.
\n\n\n\nFSC lists its expectations in 10 principles and 57 criteria, which range from respecting Indigenous peoples’ rights, to implementing a clear forest management plan, and more. Likewise, SFI’s standards detail strict rules meant to “protect water quality, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, species at risk and forests with exceptional conservation value,” according to its website. Both FSC and SFI prioritize “high conservation value” forests — regions with significant biological, social, cultural, or ecological importance.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebBody3.jpg\")
In an upcoming update, SFI will focus on adjusting forest management techniques to mitigate the effects of climate change and improve forests’ abilities to capture atmospheric carbon, according to an April 2021 news release. It will also introduce a new objective focused on minimizing the impacts of forest fires.
\n\n\n\nMeanwhile, FSC has just adopted a new, Canada-specific standard with a focus on protecting the habitats of endangered boreal woodland caribou.
\n\n\n\nAlthough FSC and SFI began as different systems, over time their standards have grown similar, until the difference “could even be imperceptible to some people,” said Dr. John Innes, a professor of forestry at the University of British Columbia.
\n\n\n\nAny differences stem from their fundamental philosophies, Innes said: “The FSC is more ecologically oriented, whereas the SFI is more production oriented.” In other words, he said, SFI might make decisions to benefit industry at the expense of the environment, within limits.
\n\n\n\nFor example, Innes said SFI is more permissive of clearcuts. Meanwhile, FSC discourages clearcuts, preferring single-tree harvesting. However, FSC does allow clearcuts in certain countries like Canada, Sweden, and Russia, with limits based on the area’s importance for biodiversity, culture, and other values. There, clearcuts help thin forests as wildfires do naturally, FSC’s Director General Kim Carstensen wrote in 2014.
\n\n\n\nIn the past, SFI faced criticism for receiving a majority of its funding from the paper and timber industries. However, Metnick asserted that the organization today is a far cry from its origins. In 2007, the certification program fully separated from AF&PA and became an independent nonprofit. Now it runs mostly on fees charged to SFI-certified companies.
\n\n\n\nSFI might make decisions to benefit industry at the expense of the environment.
According to its 2020 annual report, those fees comprised 79% of SFI’s revenue. The remaining 21% came from “annual conference revenue, service agreements, investment income and other sources.”
\n\n\n\nMeanwhile, “annual administration fees” made up 82% of FSC’s total income in 2020, according to its annual financial statement. These are fees charged to affiliated accredited certification bodies, which perform third-party audits. The remainder came from certified company membership fees, donations, and more.
\n\n\n\nAnother major difference, according to FSC Canada’s Dufresne, is that FSC requires companies to obtain free, prior, and informed consent from Indigenous people before sourcing from any land they own, occupy, or use — unlike SFI.
\n\n\n\nWhen told about Dufresne’s statement, SFI’s Metnick pointed to the initiative’s partnerships with over 120 Indigenous communities. According to its new standards, SFI requires companies to be aware of traditional forest-based knowledge, such as “known cultural heritage sites, the use of wood in traditional buildings and crafts, and flora that may be used in cultural practices for food, ceremonies, or medicine.”
\n\n\n\n“We don’t just address building meaningful relationships and respecting rights [of Indigenous peoples],” Metnick said. “We’re building communities and creating green jobs in Indigenous communities.”
\n\n\n\nDufresne noted: “It’s one thing to encourage collaboration, but to have mandatory features to make it happen is a world of difference.”
\n\n\n\nDespite deforestation prevention being a central motivation for both certifications, multiple studies show they’ve made little impact on deforestation worldwide. A 2018 study by US nonprofit Resources for the Future found no evidence that FSC certification reduced deforestation in Mexico, a country host to both “considerable FSC certification and deforestation.”
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebBody4.jpg\")
The authors speculated this was either because FSC certification resulted in minor improvements rather than dramatic results, or that certification had more substantial impacts on forest degradation — a factor the researchers didn’t measure — rather than deforestation.
\n\n\n\nFSC’s Dufresne believes his organization does prevent deforestation in certified areas, but that the result is outweighed by deforestation in largely uncertified regions. “It’s very difficult as a voluntary system to increase our footprint in those parts of the world where deforestation is, unfortunately, a big deal,” he said.
\n\n\n\nUBC’s Innes said while certifications haven’t slowed deforestation, they do provide other benefits, like “new techniques, new methods, new data that is now being collected to actually support forest management.”
\n\n\n\nIllegal logging has taken place within forests certified by both systems. Undercover investigations by the Environmental Investigation Agency, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit, connected FSC-certified companies to illegal logging in countries including Peru and Romania; in the latter two cases, FSC revoked the companies’ certifications after the reports became public.
\n\n\n\nLikewise, Plum Creek, an SFI-certified logging company, faced 11 civil penalties in five years from Oregon’s forestry department, following numerous clearcutting offenses. In 2014, environmental think tank Centre for Sustainable Economy filed a formal complaint with SFI asking to revoke Plum Creek’s certification.
\n\n\n\nAn SFI-affiliated third-party organization — the same one that had audited Plum Creek since 2009, according to environmental group Sierra Club — audited the company, and concluded there was “insufficient evidence” that Plum Creek’s actions were “either negligent or willful” and cause for suspension. The following year, Plum Creek CEO Rick Holley received an award from SFI. Holley also served twice as chair of SFI’s board.
\n\n\n\nIllegal logging has taken place within forests certified by both FSC and SFI, including in Peru, Romania, and Oregon.
“Nobody has ever lost an SFI certificate,” said Shane Moffatt, a Greenpeace Canada campaigner. “I think that gives you a comparative sense of the relative rigor of those two systems.”
\n\n\n\nSFI’s Metnick accused Moffatt of making a semantic argument. Non-compliant companies can’t lose their certification because they won’t get a certificate in the first place, he said. “It’s not like we’re taking a certificate away… because at the end of the day you just don’t get a certificate if you don’t pass the audit.” He added that SFI is not directly responsible for whether companies pass their audits — that’s up to the third-party auditors. Metnick did not confirm whether SFI had ever revoked any company’s certificate.
\n\n\n\nBoth certifications have also received flak from environmental organizations. In 2018, Greenpeace International (GI) withdrew its membership from FSC, despite being a founding member.
\n\n\n\n“FSC is not consistently applied across regions, especially where there’s weak governance,” GI stated in a press release, adding that before it can endorse the certification, FSC needs to be more transparent about where certified areas’ boundaries are, and allow external monitoring.
\n\n\n\nGreenpeace Canada remains a member of FSC, though. “It addresses some of the critical challenges in Canadian forests at the moment,” said Moffatt, such as protecting woodland caribou. “It has much more robust ecological requirements [than SFI] when it comes to species protections, and very clearly requires free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples.”
\n\n\n\nMeanwhile, since 2011, a consortium of more than 25 environmental groups (including Greenpeace, Stand.Earth, and the Sierra Club) have released statements rejecting SFI over its stance on clearcuts, lack of mandatory Indigenous consultation, and activity in endangered forests. They’ve been joined by 38 major US companies — including Office Depot and AT&T — who agreed not to use SFI-certified products for these reasons.
\n\n\n\nWhen asked which certification he preferred, Greenpeace’s Moffatt was quick to reply.
\n\n\n\n“This leopard hasn’t changed its spots,” he said of SFI. “They may have changed in some way since their original founding, but have they improved to an extent that they offer any guarantees of social responsibility or sustainability? In Greenpeace’s opinion, absolutely not.”
\n\n\n\n“On the other hand, the FSC has accomplished a lot of good over the years,” he added.
\n\n\n\nUBC’s Innes gave a more moderate response: “I would recommend either,” he said. “I think they’ve done a lot of good and I think they will continue to do lots of good.”
\n\n\n\nFSC’s rigor beats SFI’s industry focus. Neither is controversy-free, but certification by either is better than none at all.
\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1314,"template":"","meta":[],"categories":[29,10,6,38,23],"tags":[117,116,285,104],"class_list":["post-733","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-know-logo","category-magazine","category-planet","category-plants-animals","category-start-small","tag-certification","tag-forests","tag-kevin-jiang","tag-pollution"],"yoast_head":"\nA stack of lumber from an FSC-certified forest in Uaxactun, Guatemala.
\n"},"alt_text":"A worker adds a board to a stack of lumber under a canopy in a forest in Uaxactun, Guatemala.","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image/jpeg","media_details":{"width":1500,"height":1000,"file":"2022/09/Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebHeader.jpg","filesize":"467835","sizes":{"medium":{"file":"Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebHeader-300x200.jpg","width":300,"height":200,"filesize":"21982","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebHeader-300x200.jpg"},"large":{"file":"Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebHeader-1024x683.jpg","width":1024,"height":683,"filesize":"183629","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebHeader-1024x683.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebHeader-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"filesize":"9687","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebHeader-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebHeader-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512,"filesize":"113503","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebHeader-768x512.jpg"},"full":{"file":"Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebHeader.jpg","width":1500,"height":1000,"mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebHeader.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}},"source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Cutting-into-the-Controversial-World-of-Forest-Certification_WebHeader.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/attachment"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1314"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":29,"link":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/category/magazine/start-small/know-logo/","name":"Know Logo","slug":"know-logo","taxonomy":"category","yoast_head":"\nIn 2007, a cohort of 82 companies was certified as the first generation of Benefit Corporations, or B Corps. Today, over 3,500 companies in 70 countries — ranging from Kickstarter to Patagonia — have earned the certification. B Lab, the global non-profit that certifies B Corps, aims to inspire a cultural shift in the way corporations behave.
\n\n\n\n“Our vision is of an inclusive, equitable and regenerative economic system for all people and the planet,” B Lab’s website explains. The founders — three friends who’d worked in business and private equity — were concerned about companies prioritizing the value of their stocks over ethical and environmental concerns.
\n\n\n\nB Lab’s certification process aims to assess how a company’s business model and operations impact workers, community, environment, and customers, rather than shareholder earnings. B Corps run the gamut from sole proprietorships to publicly traded multinationals like Ben and Jerry’s and Danone North America.
\n\n\n\n“[B Lab] provides a holistic evaluation,” says Todd Schifeling, an assistant professor of strategic management at Temple University’s business school in Philadelphia. “They evaluate across issues, which is appealing to audiences. And it really simplifies things, as opposed to adding up 50 different certifications.”
\n\n\n\nB Lab encourages companies to adopt a “triple bottom-line” model that considers people and the planet alongside profit. Its B Impact Assessment evaluates how a company treats its employees, people living in communities where it operates, the environment, and the way their financial structure affects the community. Companies can access the assessment for free to see how they stack up against certified B Corps.
\n\n\n\nCompanies must achieve a minimum score on the B Impact Assessment, meet legal requirements set out by B Labs, have their impact assessment verified, and pay B Lab a certification fee. The assessment standards are set by B Labs’ Standards Advisory Council, which is made up of academics and business experts, including professors, representatives of large companies like Patagonia and the Walgreens Boots Alliance, and members of the financial industry.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebBody.jpeg\")
The impact assessment includes about 200 questions focused on day-to-day operations and the company’s business model, which fall into five areas. Under the governance category, the assessment considers the impact of policies and practices, such as whether a company’s mission statement includes environmental and social commitments and how it enables employees to act ethically. Second, the assessment measures worker well-being through metrics like the percentage of full-time employees paid a living wage, and the type of health-care benefits employees receive. Third, the assessment considers a company’s contributions to the community through factors like the number of living wage jobs created, and whether the company performs an environmental and social impact audit of suppliers.
\n\n\n\nConsiderations related to environmental impact include greenhouse gas emissions reduced and offset, green building standards, and water conservation. Finally, customer impact is measured by things like whether the company offers warranties, how it handles customer data, and how it responds to customer feedback. The assessment also includes questions related to supply chain, potentially sensitive industries like mining and prisons, and legal issues that could affect a company’s eligibility to become a B Corp.
\n\n\n\nOver 3,500 companies in 70 countries — ranging from Kickstarter to Patagonia — have are B Corp certified.
Companies receive a score out of 200 on their social and environmental performance. To become a B Corp, they must score at least 80. Businesses must also amend their legal governing documents to require that directors balance shareholder interests with those of other stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, society, and the environment.
\n\n\n\nB Lab analysts evaluate the impact assessments and any changes to companies’ legal structures. It’s unclear how carefully assessments are analyzed. B Lab’s website says the review process takes six to 10 months, but it also says some companies might not need to verify responses with an analyst. B Corps must display their scores on B Lab’s website. Public companies must make their entire B Impact Assessment public, though they can redact sensitive information like revenue. To maintain their certification, B Corp-certified companies must update their assessment every three years and score at least 80 points.
\n\n\n\nAccording to its website, 68% of B Lab’s 2019 operating budget of US$12 million came from “earned income,” including B Corp certification fees, impact measurement services, and event fees and sponsorship. Donations — including contributions from well-known donors like JP Morgan and the Rockefeller Foundation — accounted for the rest. To minimize conflicts of interests, B Lab has made a commitment to balancing revenue streams to avoid over-reliance on one source, and created processes for managing potential conflicts. For example, a company cannot get certified for two years if it donates US$100,000 or more to B Lab.
\n\n\n\nB Lab’s website claims B Corp certification helps companies attract employees, earn customer trust, and gain competitive advantages. But the main reason companies go after certification? To show they’re dedicated to being better.
\n\n\n\n“One major motivation for certification is to fight against other companies’ unverified claims of sustainability and social responsibility,” says Suntae Kim, an assistant professor of management and organization at Boston College. He has studied why companies become B Corps with Temple University’s Schifeling. “Given the rigor, and the hassle, of the certification process — that involves a lot of work, energy, time, money, and potential liability — companies that hope to achieve mere ‘greenwashing’ wouldn’t be able to easily achieve or maintain the certification.”
\n\n\n\nThe B Corp certification provides a holistic assessment of companies’ social and environmental practices. A company can’t have a great environmental record, but treat workers horribly if it wants to be certified. However, B Corps are rated on a scale, so some perform better than others. To see how a particular B Corp scored, find its assessment at on the B Corp website.
\n\n\n\n“They evaluate the entire company,” says Schifeling. “So it’s not like, ‘this is just our green product line,’ and on the other side of the company, most of our money is coming from crude oil or something like that.”
\n\n\n\nGiven the rigor of the certification process, companies that hope to achieve mere “greenwashing” wouldn’t easily achieve certification.
Plus, Boston College’s Kim says the certification hasn’t been co-opted by big corporations for greenwashing. With other labels — such as organic, fair trade, and socially responsible investment — “efforts to expand the movement led to… the dilution of certification standards,” he says.
\n\n\n\nB Lab is taking steps to avoid such possibilities, Kim adds, noting it’s put in place a rigorous guideline for multinational corporations which “would certainly make one think that there is no way profit-centered multinationals would want to even consider going through the process.”
\n\n\n\nRigorous, holistic, and undiluted (so far). An improvement on the status quo.
\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1118,"template":"","meta":[],"categories":[46,29,10,7,23],"tags":[128,117,83,102,119,130,281],"class_list":["post-707","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-know-logo","category-magazine","category-society","category-start-small","tag-business","tag-certification","tag-europe","tag-international-development","tag-investing","tag-north-america","tag-rebecca-gao"],"yoast_head":"\nCertified B Corps plying their wares at Toronto’s B Inspired festival in 2017
\n"},"alt_text":"Canopy tents of various brands in a crowded plaza. A pull-up banner reads “Meet the businesses building a better world.”","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image/jpeg","media_details":{"width":1500,"height":1000,"file":"2022/09/Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebHeader.jpg","filesize":"304815","sizes":{"medium":{"file":"Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebHeader-300x200.jpg","width":300,"height":200,"filesize":"21965","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebHeader-300x200.jpg"},"large":{"file":"Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebHeader-1024x683.jpg","width":1024,"height":683,"filesize":"170600","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebHeader-1024x683.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebHeader-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"filesize":"9237","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebHeader-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebHeader-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512,"filesize":"105889","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebHeader-768x512.jpg"},"full":{"file":"Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebHeader.jpg","width":1500,"height":1000,"mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebHeader.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}},"source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Are-B-Corps-as-Beneficial-as-They-Claim_WebHeader.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/attachment"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1118"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":46,"link":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/category/society/economy/","name":"Economy","slug":"economy","taxonomy":"category","yoast_head":"\nWhen I first became passionate about avoiding fast fashion, I found it hard to find one closet staple — jeans. I pored through lists of sustainable and ethical denim brands; each seemed like a good investment, but was out of my budget. In recent years, that’s begun to change. Major retailers like Target have begun selling jeans from Fair Trade USA-certified factories for under $30. Beyond denim, other fair-trade clothing has cropped up in stores, both mainstream and niche. But what does the seal’s growing abundance mean? Do fair-trade jeans truly embrace ethical labour and environmental standards?
\n\n\n\nFounded in 1998, Fair Trade USA originally certified a network of coffee growers. When coffee companies sourced beans from fair-trade farms — which met certain environmental and labour standards — and paid growers a set minimum above-market price, they received Fair Trade Certified labels. By the early 2000s, Fair Trade USA had expanded to tea, cocoa, and produce. Its sticker could be found on everything from chocolate bars to bananas. In 2010, the company began certifying cotton apparel and linens, and factories producing them.
\n\n\n\nFair Trade USA has three apparel certifications. First, Fair Trade Certified Factory and Fair Trade Certified Sewing seals certify garments manufactured in Fair Trade USA-certified factories; the raw materials, including fabric, are uncertified. This certification appears on jeans from Madewell and Target’s Universal Thread line, and on Mountain Equipment Coop’s fair-trade line.
\n\n\n\nSecond, the Fair Trade Certified Cotton seal guarantees the cotton in the product comes from fair-trade sources and makes up at least 20% of the raw materials. The nonprofit doesn’t certify other fabrics, but some companies incorporate sustainability in other ways. For example, Patagonia makes products with a Fair Trade Sewing seal from recycled polyester.
\n\n\n\nThird, the Fair Trade Certified logo with no caveats guarantees the product is made in a certified factory and fair-trade cotton makes up at least 50% of the fabric mix. Fewer brands have this certification. HAE Now’s cotton products and Vonadhona’s T-shirts meet these standards.
\n\n\n\nThe Fair Trade USA Factory Standard for Apparel and Home Goods aims to empower workers, while ensuring fair working conditions and environmentally responsible production. Certification requirements fall into four categories. First, empowerment standards focus on ensuring workers can negotiate and work with management to improve working conditions. Second, social responsibility standards require factories to uphold labour, health, and safety standards, and buyers to commit to long-term purchases to create a stable climate for factories to improve working conditions. Third, factories must meet environmental standards and continuously improve environmental practices.
\n\n\n\nThe money funds community projects, like childcare facilities, computer centers, and health care clinics.
Fourth, the certification promotes economic development by requiring brands to pay Fair Trade Certified suppliers a premium above the cost of goods. The premium goes into an account managed by a committee of elected workers and non-voting management representatives, which funds community projects, such as childcare facilities, computer centers, and health care clinics, or distributes cash bonuses to employees.
\n\n\n\nSuppliers must comply with a long list of Fair Trade USA factory standards, the majority of which must be met immediately. Others can be met within one or three years of certification. Fair Trade USA grants certification for three years at time with third-party certification audits completed triannually and third-party surveillance audits in intervening years. If a supplier is not complying with requirements, they must remedy the problems. Otherwise, they can lose certification.
\n\n\n\nFair Trade Certified Cotton is grown on fair-trade farms and, depending on the certificate holder, may be spun in certified mills and processing facilities. Factories and traders can purchase unprocessed seed cotton or spun and dyed textiles from a list of certified suppliers. Certified farms must avoid pesticides and fertilizers banned by Fair Trade USA and follow waste disposal requirements that aim to protect soil quality and biodiversity. Additionally, cotton buyers, like traders or processors, must pay farms a minimum price for cotton, a crop whose value often fluctuates.
\n\n\n\nBrands, factories, and farms seeking certification pay for audits through a third party. Fair Trade USA charges clothing brands a portion of sales depending on the scale of their operation. It also receives donations and grants. Some critics have questioned this financial structure, as the more suppliers it certifies, the more licensing fees it generates.
\n\n\n\nTo Asparagus’ knowledge, Fair Trade USA is the only third-party fair-trade certifier for discrete apparel factories. Other groups like Fairtrade International also certify cotton.
\n\n\n\nIn terms of cotton, Fair Trade USA and Fairtrade International have some differences. Fair Trade International prioritizes small-scale producers while Fair Trade USA certifies both plantations and small farms. Wage Requirements also differ. Fairtrade International requires farms pay workers a living wage within six years or a union-negotiated deadline; Fair Trade USA requires progression towards a living wage without a definitive timeline. Both groups monitor suppliers with audits, prohibit forced labor, and require that workers have the right to join unions.
\n\n\n\nFair Trade USA’s apparel program has worked with dozens of brands to shift fraught supply chains and source clothes from more ethical manufacturers. But Anna Canning, campaigns manager for the Fair World Project, a fair trade watchdog group, worries brands benefit too much from Fair Trade USA’s individual factory and cotton logos.
\n\n\n\n“What we see overall is a lot of marketing of impact, but less so systems to back that up,” she said, pointing to J. Crew’s fair-trade jeans. When they debuted, J. Crew received a rush of media coverage. But, even though the jeans were sewn in a Fair Trade USA-certified factory, the farming, spinning, and dying of the cotton in the jeans were not evaluated by Fair Trade USA.
\n\n\n\nToo often, uncertified cotton is harvested or spun unethically.
Too often, uncertified cotton is harvested or spun unethically. Forced labor was prevalent in the 2019 cotton harvests in Uzbekistan and has been documented during cotton harvests Turkmenistan. Child labor has been reported in other major cotton-producing countries like India, Pakistan, and Burkina Faso. Many cotton laborers work seasonally, are from poorer regions, and are exposed to dangerous pesticides. Beyond that, cotton’s prices can rapidly fluctuate, leaving workers at risk of uncertain wages and poverty.
\n\n\n\nIn addition, some worker’s rights groups and academics question the effectiveness of audits, which are at the heart of Fair Trade USA’s process. They worry workers may not feel comfortable speaking honestly and annual visits don’t provide a full picture of what happens year-round.
\n\n\n\nThe complete Fair Trade USA Certified Seal is the best option for fair-trade cotton goods. However, certified apparel that is not 100% cotton contains non-certified materials, too.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Are-Fair-Trade-Clothes-the-Fairest-of-them-All_WebBody1.jpg\")
In these cases, you can research where the producer sources other materials. Groups like Fair Trade Federation and Fair World Project assemble lists of brands with ethical and transparent supply chains. You can also consider other fabric certifications, including the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), Cradle to Cradle, and Textile Exchange. Finally, buying clothes second hand is perhaps the most sustainable option, as it reduces waste and extends the life of garments.
\n\n\n\nPersonally, I decided against buying certified jeans. I prefer clothes for which supplier transparency extends from the beginning of the supply chain to the end. Still, it seemed impossible a Fair Trade logo could appear within big box stores just five years ago. I’m hopeful its popularity will continue to grow.
\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1322,"template":"","meta":[],"categories":[19,49,29,8,10,7,23],"tags":[117,289,124],"class_list":["post-757","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fashion-beauty","category-human-rights","category-know-logo","category-living","category-magazine","category-society","category-start-small","tag-certification","tag-emma-rubin","tag-fashion"],"yoast_head":"\nLeadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), is a comprehensive and complex certification program for green building. Developed in the 1990s by the non-profit US Green Building Council (USGBC), it now guides sustainable construction in more than 160 countries. LEED looks at every component of a building — from site selection and construction techniques to appliances and furnishings — with the goal of making buildings safe, environmentally friendly, and energy efficient.
\n\n\n\nAlthough LEED is often associated with prestige buildings like Vancouver’s grass-roofed convention centre or Facebook’s water-efficient headquarters in California, LEED also certifies apartment, condo, and single family home construction. Projects earn points for meeting requirements like careful construction-waste disposal and optional features like rainwater management. The number of points earned determines the level of certification awarded: certified, silver, gold, or platinum.
\n\n\n\nLEED guidelines differ depending on project type. Under the most recent standard for residential construction, credits are offered in eight categories: location and transportation (encourages building on previously developed lots and avoiding sensitive land); sustainable sites (minimizing impact of construction and building on local ecology); water efficiency; energy and atmosphere; materials and resources; indoor environmental quality (eliminating contaminants like formaldehyde and mold); innovation; and regional priority (credits for elements important to the region of construction).
\n\n\n\nA LEED home is not a DIY project. It usually requires accredited architects and project managers, and contractors that understand specific techniques.
Homes earn points for being close to a bike network and within 800 meters of resources like stores, cafés, schools and libraries. Woods and materials must be environmentally sustainable, and/or extracted, processed, and manufactured locally. Points are awarded for using recycled materials. Inside, appliances and water systems must be efficient. A LEED-certified home should be oriented to benefit from passive solar heating and be sized appropriately — the LEED reference home assumes 205 square metres for a three-bedroom home.
\n\n\n\nA LEED home is not a DIY project. Building one usually requires architects and project managers with LEED accreditation, and contractors that understand principles and techniques specific to LEED.
\n\n\n\nCertification is a multi-stage process. Residential projects are required to have a LEED-approved Green Rater as part of the project team. Green Raters have at least three years of experience in residential construction, a thorough understanding of LEED practices, and complete a short training course offered by USGBC. They must be involved from the design phase of the project and throughout the construction process, doing an on-site verification to confirm LEED specifications have been met.
\n\n\n\nAfter construction, they assemble the package for final review by a country’s green building council. USGBC charges builders to register a project (ranging from US$225 per detached home up to US$5,000 for a city) and again for the review (US$300 for a house, in the tens of thousands for large projects).
\n\n\n\nSince its creation in 1998, LEED has had detractors. LEED projects can be less energy-efficient than claimed; a 2019 review published in the journal Sustainability concluded that “energy efficiency of LEED-certified buildings is questionable especially at lower levels.”
\n\n\n\nOne example: a 2013 New Republic article described a Manhattan skyscraper as “Bank of America’s Toxic Tower” for its high greenhouse gas emissions per square foot. The USGBC rebuttal appeared with the article, pointing out the author had ignored features that made the building efficient, and that builders and certifiers have no control of how occupants use a building: “These unanticipated changes could indeed impact a project’s energy use.”
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebBody-1024x341.jpg\")
More recent versions of LEED have tried to address the occupancy issue with the Building Operations and Maintenance certification. This framework provides a way of assessing the actual energy-use of occupied buildings, but it is optional.
\n\n\n\nOne common perception of LEED is that it’s “crazy expensive,” says Joanne Sawatzky, a managing director at Light House Sustainability Society, a non-profit focused on creating a sustainable built environment. In fact, Sawatzky says, building to the LEED standard costs 1–5% more than a conventional building. LEED claims that decreased spending on energy and other expenses offsets that investment in only a few years, though that would depend on energy savings being realized.
\n\n\n\nThere is a belief that applicants and their consultants “game the system” by going after low-hanging fruit to rack up a good score.
Another criticism is that LEED is more about “greenwashing” than actual environmental sustainability. Kaid Benfield, who co-founded LEED’s Neighborhood Development rating system, observed in a 2013 critique: “there is a belief that applicants and their consultants ‘game the system’ by going after low-hanging fruit to rack up a good score, even if the underlying measure doesn’t result in a significant environmental improvement.”
\n\n\n\nHowever, critics including Benfield acknowledge that, despite its weaknesses, LEED has made environmentally responsible building easier and has given developers a business case for green building. LEED’s oversight body, the USGBC, seems willing to look at shortcomings and make changes in each revision of the system (we’re currently on version 4.1).
\n\n\n\nLEED remains the best-known measure of sustainable design and construction, especially for large, high-profile buildings. But developers and homeowners have many options when planning a project. Sawatzky mentioned a system called Built Green she says is popular in Alberta, which offers certification and training for homebuilders. This program is “more like a checklist of items which is a lot easier for standard home builders to understand,” says Sawatzky. “It really lays things out very simply where LEED has layers.”
\n\n\n\nAnd in BC, where Sawatzky is based, the BC Energy Step Code offers builders and renovators a flexible system of “steps” that will “make buildings net-zero energy ready by 2032.” The Germany-based Passive House Institute has a similar step-by-step system for designing and building homes with low energy use.
\n\n\n\n“LEED remains the best-known rating system for green buildings,” says Sawatzky. “However, other rating systems are picking up momentum as they align with specific municipal or provincial mandates for reduced energy and carbon emissions.” Although other systems might be less comprehensive than LEED, they’re helping move home construction toward more ecologically responsible practices.
\n\n\n\nComprehensive and internationally recognized. Critiqued but regularly updated.
\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1266,"template":"","meta":[],"categories":[45,12,29,10,6,7,23],"tags":[282,117,32,118],"class_list":["post-716","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cities","category-energy","category-know-logo","category-magazine","category-planet","category-society","category-start-small","tag-barry-rueger","tag-certification","tag-conservation","tag-design"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Vancouver Convention Centre is LEED-certified platinum.
\n"},"alt_text":"A wide, wedge-shaped four-storey building with wrap-around glass walls sits on the south shore of Vancouver Harbour.","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image/jpeg","media_details":{"width":1500,"height":1000,"file":"2022/09/Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebHeader.jpg","filesize":"260736","sizes":{"medium":{"file":"Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebHeader-300x200.jpg","width":300,"height":200,"filesize":"12273","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebHeader-300x200.jpg"},"large":{"file":"Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebHeader-1024x683.jpg","width":1024,"height":683,"filesize":"107525","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebHeader-1024x683.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebHeader-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"filesize":"5511","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebHeader-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebHeader-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512,"filesize":"64281","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebHeader-768x512.jpg"},"full":{"file":"Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebHeader.jpg","width":1500,"height":1000,"mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebHeader.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}},"source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Get-to-Know-the-Global-Scheme-that-Promotes-Green-Building_WebHeader.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/attachment"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1266"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":45,"link":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/category/society/cities/","name":"Cities","slug":"cities","taxonomy":"category","yoast_head":"\nFive hundred years ago, Newfoundland and Labrador’s coastal waters teemed with cod, drawing fishing boats from England, Normandy, Portugal, and Spain. But by 1992, the region’s cod stocks were pushed to near extinction, and the Canadian government decided to shut down the industry. Over 30,000 fishers and fish-plant workers across the province were forced to give up a way of life that had been part of their communities for generations.
\n\n\n\nThe cod collapse in Newfoundland highlighted growing problems with overfishing worldwide, and inspired environmentalists and industry to come together to find a solution. In 1996, conservationists from the World Wildlife Fund and consumer goods giant Unilever initiated a project that grew into the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).
\n\n\n\nIn 1997, MSC became an independent, non-profit organisation, and by 2000 MSC’s little fish logo began appearing on seafood products from certified wild fisheries. Today, it’s one of the most well-recognized international certifications for sustainable seafood. But, two decades on, does it still hold water?
\n\n\n\nWhen you see the MSC logo on a can of tuna or clam chowder, it means the seafood inside was caught sustainably according to MSC standards. The standards look at three main areas. First, they aim to ensure fisheries leave fish stocks at a level at which fishing can continue “indefinitely,” and the fish population remains “productive and healthy.” Second, the standards check whether the fisheries’ practices minimize their negative impact on habitats and other ocean life. Third, the standards look at overall management, and whether fisheries follow local environmental laws.
\n\n\n\nFisheries are evaluated on 28 performance indicators related to the three main principles, and given a score out of 100 for each indicator. For example, one indicator checks whether fishing gear is being used in ways that minimize damage to the ocean floor and ecosystem. A fishery needs a minimum score of 60 and an average of 80 on all the indicators to display the MSC logo on their products. To get the logo, fisheries pay to be assessed by independent certification bodies against MSC standards.
\n\n\n\nA 2019 investigation found 47% of seafood tested across Canada was mislabeled.
The MSC logo also means the seafood you’re buying is the same species as advertised, because MSC tracks the entire journey of that specific seafood — from when it was caught to store shelves. Mislabeled fish and seafood fraud are huge problems across North America. A 2019 investigation by advocacy group Oceana found 47% of seafood they tested across Canada was mislabeled with either false or misleading information.
\n\n\n\n“We have found farmed fish served up as wild-caught, cheaper species substituted for more expensive ones and fish banned in many countries because of health risks masquerading as another species,” said Josh Laughren, executive director of Oceana Canada, in a press release.
\n\n\n\nOver 40,000 different seafood products and 360 certified fisheries around the world bear the logo. In Canada, you can find MSC-certified food in casinos, university lunch rooms, and grocery stores.
\n\n\n\nMost of MSC’s income comes from handing out their logo. In the 2019 fiscal year, 80% of the global organization’s income, or about US $27 million, came from logo-licensing fees paid by brands, retailers, and food service organizations. The rest of MSC’s income comes from donors, trading, and investments.
\n\n\n\nThe MSC logo is a helpful certification, but not all products that bear it are equally sustainable, says Shannon Arnold, marine program senior coordinator at the Nova-Scotia-based Ecology Action Centre. Some certified fisheries have more sustainable practices than others, but that discrepancy isn’t obvious to shoppers, she explains.
\n\n\n\nFor example, some fisheries with the MSC certification were given the logo too early, and had injured or killed sea life other than what they intended to catch, including sea turtles and sharks, according to a 2017 study for SeaChoice, a coalition of Canadian sustainable seafood advocacy organizations.
\n\n\n\nMSC’s logo licensing model puts “pressure on them to continue to bring fisheries into the program who might not quite be ready,” explains Arnold, who co-authored the report. “MSC makes their money on logo licensing, and so the more products that are on the shelves that have that blue logo, the more money MSC is going to be making.”
\n\n\n\nIndependent third-party decision-making is a hallmark of all credible eco-labels.
But Jay Lugar, program director for MSC Canada, says MSC doesn’t have any influence over whether or not a fishery or product receives the logo, because MSC doesn’t do certifications itself. Instead, certification bodies — independent organizations approved to conduct a range of assessments, like MSC and other eco-certifications — measure fisheries against MSC’s standards. “Independent third-party decision-making is [a] hallmark of all credible eco-labels,” says Lugar.
\n\n\n\nIn addition, MSC disputes the claims in SeaChoice’s 2017 report, saying it over-simplified and misinterpreted data, and that most of the fisheries with room for improvement ultimately got better. According to Lugar, every fishery in the MSC program is sustainable according to industry standards, with its progress — and setbacks — monitored regularly. Fisheries that qualify for the MSC label are subject to annual audits and a full reassessment every five years, he explains. “[Fisheries] have to meet those milestones in order to stay.”
\n\n\n\nWhile Lugar acknowledges that standards need to be constantly evolving — and some fisheries have room for improvement — he says that MSC protects ocean habitats, and endangered and threatened animals.
\n\n\n\n“Fisheries must demonstrate that any interactions with by-catch species — including sharks and turtles — are not harming the health of these populations, vulnerable or not,” added Céline Rouzaud, a spokesperson for MSC Canada, in an email. “If any species (sharks and sea turtles included) are listed as ETP (Endangered, Threatened or Protected) then they are subject to additional, even more rigorous protection measures.”
\n\n\n\nIn spite of the critiques, the MSC logo, “is the best logo that’s out there,” says Arnold of the Ecology Action Centre. “So we still say to consumers, the right thing to do is to look for that label.”
\n\n\n\nArnold recommends using MSC alongside other programs like OceanWise and Seafood Watch to get the bigger picture. For example, OceanWise provides information on restaurants and stores that sell sustainable seafood, while Seafood Watch can give you more information about specific fish species. Both programs look at the impact of wild and farm fisheries on the ecosystem and overall fish stocks. However, they don’t track the entire journey of that specific seafood — from when it was caught to store shelves — like MSC does.
\n\n\n\nUse MSC alongside programs like OceanWise and Seafood Watch to get the bigger picture.
The MSC’s standard is currently undergoing a five-year review that could go until 2021. As a watchdog, the Ecology Action Centre intends to keep pushing the standard to improve. “We want to make sure that these certification programs and what they’re saying to consumers about, ‘This is a fishery that is actually better on the water’ is true,” Arnold says.
\n\n\n\nLegit. A splash in the right direction, with room for improvement.
\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1012,"template":"","meta":[],"categories":[14,29,8,10,23],"tags":[117,98,258,103],"class_list":["post-541","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","category-know-logo","category-living","category-magazine","category-start-small","tag-certification","tag-ecology","tag-francesca-fionda","tag-oceans"],"yoast_head":"\nDescription needed.
\n"},"alt_text":"Stacked cans of Gold Seal wild sockeye salmon. Each can has a blue MSC label bearing a small white emblem of a fish.","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image/jpeg","media_details":{"width":1500,"height":1125,"file":"2022/09/MSC-header.jpg","filesize":"303265","sizes":{"medium":{"file":"MSC-header-300x225.jpg","width":300,"height":225,"filesize":"26940","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/MSC-header-300x225.jpg"},"large":{"file":"MSC-header-1024x768.jpg","width":1024,"height":768,"filesize":"184293","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/MSC-header-1024x768.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"MSC-header-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"filesize":"10524","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/MSC-header-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"MSC-header-768x576.jpg","width":768,"height":576,"filesize":"120876","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/MSC-header-768x576.jpg"},"full":{"file":"MSC-header.jpg","width":1500,"height":1125,"mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/MSC-header.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}},"source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/MSC-header.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/attachment"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1012"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":14,"link":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/category/living/food/","name":"Food","slug":"food","taxonomy":"category","yoast_head":"\nAt the grocery store with my father once, I stumbled on a package of plain almonds proudly and unironically labeled “dairy-free.” We laughed while putting the suspiciously distinguished, but naturally “dairy-free,” product back on the shelf. I think back on this as an innocuous example of the increasingly saturated label market, drawing on diet fads and our eco-moral compass to convince us to take products home.
\n\n\n\nSuch labelling seems misleading, but what about the multitude of green and blue, leaf-bearing, ambiguous “natural” labels on shelves these days? How can we sift through products claiming to be “green,” “eco-friendly,” and “sustainable” and find the greenest of them all?
\n\n\n\nEnter Know Logo. Asparagus will periodically review different eco-labels to help you figure out which ones are worthy of your attention. First up: EcoLogo, North America’s oldest eco-certification.
\n\n\n\nCreated in 1988 by the Canadian government, EcoLogo (formerly known as “Environmental Choice”) certifies diverse products, ranging from paint to cell phones to refrigerators. It is recommended by a range of organizations, including the US Environmental Protection Agency, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Natural Step, and Manitoba’s Green Action Centre. EcoLogo-certified building materials are also used to improve sustainability in the construction industry.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ecologo.png\")
In addition, EcoLogo is one of only two North American certification standards approved by the Global Ecolabelling Network. That’s because it meets the ISO 14024 environmental label standard, which requires that labelling is voluntary, done by a third party, and reviews the entire life cycle of the product. Today, EcoLogo is run by UL LLC, an American company that develops environmental and sustainability standards for various products and services under multiple certifications, including EcoLogo and Greenguard.
\n\n\n\nEcoLogo publishes environmental standards, and certifies products that meet or exceed those standards. An EcoLogo doesn’t indicate that a product has zero environmental impact, of course, but that it has a relatively small impact compared to similar products. EcoLogo evaluates products using science-based criteria, carries out third-party audits to check products meet its standard, and charges companies for its testing and certification services.
\n\n\n\nEcoLogo’s criteria consider the environment, human health, and safety by accounting for a range of factors, including energy efficiency, water consumption, air pollution, materials processing, noise, packaging, and more. For example, to receive an EcoLogo certification, personal care products like hand soap cannot be tested on animals or include a variety of harmful chemicals; must be biodegradable; and must be made with recyclable manufacturing materials.
\n\n\n\nProducts must also meet performance standards, so they aren’t just green, they work.
So, don’t worry — toilet paper at your local drugstore isn’t about to get an EcoLogo for being 2% recycled. In order to get certified, toilet paper must contain at least 50% recycled content, in addition to meeting criteria related to reducing pollution, energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions during the production process. Products must also meet performance standards, so they aren’t just green, they work.
\n\n\n\nLook for the EcoLogo symbol on products at your local store or head over to SPOT for an EcoLogo product database. To get more information about the criteria used to evaluate a product, visit the UL website. After creating a free account, you can view documents describing standards for different types of products, including building materials, cleaning products, personal care products, and electronics.
\n\n\n\nIn our research, Asparagus didn’t find any scandals except for an issue with hydro-electricity in British Columbia. In 2012, EcoLogo was called out for being too lenient with its certification for run-of-river hydro projects in BC because it used narrow criteria focused on fish without considering issues like water-flow rates that affect their welfare. UL pledged to revise the criteria. Their latest standard for water-powered electricity, which came out in 2018, says certified hydro-electric facilities cannot significantly harm or destroy fish habitat unless they replace it with similar habitat nearby.
\n\n\n\nRespected! Accredited! (Almost) conflict-free!
\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1561,"template":"","meta":[],"categories":[29,10,23],"tags":[117,32,98,116,288,130],"class_list":["post-754","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-know-logo","category-magazine","category-start-small","tag-certification","tag-conservation","tag-ecology","tag-forests","tag-marianna-ciccia","tag-north-america"],"yoast_head":"\nSo many products make claims about being “green” and “eco-friendly,” and the proliferation of eco-labels only makes shopping trips more confusing. Enter Know Logo.
\n"},"alt_text":"A shopping cart rolling down a brightly-lit grocery store aisle.","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image/jpeg","media_details":{"width":1500,"height":1000,"file":"2022/10/ecologo-header.jpg","filesize":"159681","sizes":{"medium":{"file":"ecologo-header-300x200.jpg","width":300,"height":200,"filesize":"13903","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ecologo-header-300x200.jpg"},"large":{"file":"ecologo-header-1024x683.jpg","width":1024,"height":683,"filesize":"76779","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ecologo-header-1024x683.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"ecologo-header-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"filesize":"6113","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ecologo-header-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"ecologo-header-768x512.jpg","width":768,"height":512,"filesize":"50957","mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ecologo-header-768x512.jpg"},"full":{"file":"ecologo-header.jpg","width":1500,"height":1000,"mime_type":"image/jpeg","source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ecologo-header.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"Rawpixel Ltd.","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}},"source_url":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ecologo-header.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/1561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/attachment"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=1561"}]}}],"wp:term":[[{"id":29,"link":"https://files.asparagusmagazine.com/category/magazine/start-small/know-logo/","name":"Know Logo","slug":"know-logo","taxonomy":"category","yoast_head":"\n