By Ian Hall

Here’s a case study about greenwashing the envrionmental impacts of tourism. In this story, imagine I am the sustainability manager of a resort hotel which is keen to do the right thing by practising responsible tourism.

I learn of a laundry detergent supplier who claims that their product is environmentally friendly and think Great! we can use this product and advertise the fact in our green marketing.

As a hotel I am a consumer of laundry detergents and I need to be able to verify that this product is truly green. If I don’t and the claims turn out to be spurious then I am guilty of propagating the greenwashing. In my position this is made more significant because I am not the end of the chain. I am selling on the green image to my guests and in doing so I am setting a standard for what is green.

Being diligent, I compose a letter to the supplier to reassure myself that the product is genuinely environmentally friendly. i.e is made only from organic ingredients and contains no Phosphates, synthetic surfactants, optical brighteners etc etc.

“Dear Demanding Customer” the would be environmentally friendly supplier wrote, “I have ascertained that my product could not meet your requirement of biodegradable as they are not made of organic ingredients. However, we can claim that it is environmental friendly where it doesn’t emit harmful substance to the environment.”

Immediately I sense that the supplier either doesn’t know what he is talking about or is trying to hoodwink me.

“Dear Detergent Man” I questioned, “What do you mean by ‘do not emit harmful substance to the environment’? What are the ingredients of your products? Does it contain phosphate, chlorine, LAS, SLS and optical whiteners? If so, then we are unfortunately not interested in the products. If not, I would like to have more information about your products.”

“Dear Demanding Customer” came the admission, “For the laundry detergent it does contained surfactant and optical brightener. The ingredients of products are confidential but what we can do is only to verify whether the particular contained in or not. By all the mean, we could not meet all of your requirement. Thanks and regards.”

So there you have an ‘environmental friendly’ detergent supplier that cannot substantiate their claims. Exposing claims as false is easy if you have little information about which of the typical ingredients of detergent may not be environmentally friendly.

Finding genuine environmentally friendly detergents is still the difficult bit. Luckily suppliers are starting to respond to demand from awkward customers and either importing western brands into the Asia region or better, starting to make their own. If you can’t find one of these brands right away at least you can learn how to recognise one when you do see it.

Glossary
LAS: Linear Alkyl Sodium Sulfonates
SLS: Sodium Lauryl Sulphate

For further information about ingredients of laundry detergents I have dug out three websites each with a different bias.
Pro alternative detergent
Pro conventional detergent
Unbiased

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