IN SUMMARY
Consumer demand for low-impact products has created a strong commercial case for promoting environmental performance, but misleading green claims are everywhere. A 2020 European Commission study found that 53% of green claims were vague, misleading or unfounded, and 40% were unsubstantiated. As the EU's Green Claims Directive and similar national rules come into force, every company will need more rigour in how it makes and markets environmental claims. This guide explains how life cycle assessment underpins credible claims, and sets out Minviro's four guiding principles for substantiating and communicating them without greenwashing.
Greenwashing is often unintentional. It happens not only by overstating benefits, but by cherry-picking one life cycle stage or impact category, using vague terms like "eco-friendly," or failing to understand complex supply chains.
Credible claims rest on two pillars. A claim must be properly substantiated by quality data and accurate interpretation, and clearly communicated so the consumer is not misled, both are needed.
LCA is the backbone of defensible claims. Its ISO-compliant, multi-impact, whole-life methodology lets companies substantiate comparative and non-comparative claims and stand behind them under scrutiny.
What greenwashing looks like, and why it happens
Greenwashing occurs when a product is made to seem more environmentally beneficial than it is, and it can be intentional or accidental. In the technology and raw materials sector it takes recognisable forms: vague, undefined terms like "sustainable" or "green"; overemphasis on a single positive attribute while obscuring negatives; inflated energy-efficiency claims that ignore whole-of-life consumption; unverified eco-labels designed to look like real certifications; a lack of standardised reporting that prevents fair comparison; and limited life cycle analysis that judges a product on one stage, such as the use phase, while ignoring manufacturing and disposal. Underlying many of these is a simple cause: complex global supply chains that companies do not fully understand or disclose. The fix is consistent across all of them, claims need robust evidence, transparency and clear communication.
Why LCA underpins credible claims
To understand a product's true environmental impact, its whole life span has to be assessed, and that is exactly what life cycle assessment does. LCA models impacts from raw material extraction and processing through manufacturing, transport, use and end of life, across as many as 16 environmental categories including carbon footprint, ecosystem and human health, resource depletion and land use. Practitioners define a functional unit (such as one kilogram of active material or one kilowatt-hour of energy) and a system boundary (cradle-to-gate, cradle-to-grave or cradle-to-cradle), then build a full inventory of inputs and outputs for each stage. Because the methodology is rigorous and ISO-compliant, it is widely used to meet sustainability regulations and, crucially, to substantiate credible comparative and non-comparative environmental claims rather than relying on assertion.