OPINION: Green-washing, good feelings, and getting certified

Words: Imogen Smith 

Photo: Chris King

Millennials (people born between about 1981–1996) and Gen Z (1997–2012) make up nearly 50% of consumers globally. This cohort wields ridiculous power over brands’ decisions and strategies, successes and failures–and they’re thinking green. Recent studies demonstrate that these younger generations are much more likely to base their purchasing decisions on sustainability and social factors than their parents did. For example, a recent analysis by Retail Touchpoints reveals that 83% of Millennials want to buy from brands that align with their values and make them feel good, favouring ethical consumption over low prices, while 75% of Gen Z are looking to make sustainable purchases, most of them willing to spend 10% more to do so.

With the biggest single cohort of consumers looking for sustainable credentials and willing to pay for them, most companies targeting these age groups (hello, bike industry) have started to embed messages about sustainability into their marketing… but this raises a big problem–how do we know when something really is sustainable, and how do we know when it’s just ‘greenwashing’?

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Greenwashing is the practice of making something look like it’s environmentally-friendly or socially-responsible by highlighting an (often tokenistic) aspect of the manufacture or supply chain that ticks the boxes, when underneath there are a bunch of Dickensian problems that absolutely aren’t sustainable. An example might be a brand that advertises recycled packaging, all the while exploiting workers in off-shore sweatshops; another might be a brand that has created an innovative, recyclable product, but releases dangerous chemicals into the environment in its manufacturing process. 

Greenwashing is a major issue and there’s not a whole lot of regulation out there to stop it… so spare a thought for all of us Gen Z and Millennial consumers looking to make responsible purchases and ending up in endless knots wondering whether something really is sustainable, ethical, and socially-responsible—or not!? Send help!

One way around this (and it isn’t easy or cheap) is to bring in third parties who provide rigorous supply chain and business process testing, education, benchmarking and ultimately, certification to demonstrate that the product is clean and green. This certification could cover one set of materials (like Bluesign fabrics, for example, used by brands like Attaquer and Rubber Side Down), or could be applied to the entire business, including factors like governance and social responsibility, as well as environmental credentials. A great example of this is B Corporation Certification.

Chris King is the first and only company in the bicycle world that we know of to be a certified B Corporation. Never heard of it? B Corporation Certification measures a company’s entire social and environmental impact, requiring high levels of commitment and transparency. The certification takes many months, and examines the quality of a company’s engagement with governance, workers, community, environment and customers, providing a score out of 100. For Chris King, B Corp Certification means that the company works to benefit all stakeholders, not just shareholders, and it draws a broad definition of the word stakeholder–it could mean you, me, its workers, even the environment that provides raw materials. Chris King say, “We recognize that it takes a lot of energy and resources to produce the raw materials that we machine into finished parts. And so, how we treat those materials, and how long our finished products last is the real measure of how well we’re serving our stakeholders.”

Chris King have a bunch of practices that feed into their certification, including collection of metal shavings (as pictured), but one of the big ones is its lifetime warranty. One of Chris King’s guiding principles, since its inception in 1976, has been to manufacture parts of such high quality that they never end up in landfill. “We can keep your parts running for life,” they say, and they genuinely want to, inviting customers to send in damaged or broken parts for repair for as long as the company is running. It’s about as far from greenwashing as you can get.

Chris King have obviously made a huge commitment to get their B Corp Certification, and while they're the first, they won't be the last. Loads of other cycling brands have similar values and are making huge strides towards end-to-end sustainability. Certifications are one piece of the puzzle for consumers looking to make great decisions and for brands looking to make a better world, and one more thing to look out for if you're looking to feel good about your bike purchases, and avoid green-washing.