Kevin Lambert, Resource Efficiency Lead at GC Business Growth Hub, explains the rising awareness of ‘corporate greenwash’ and why businesses need to be accurate, clear and transparent when promoting their environmental credentials.

The demand for ‘eco-friendly’ products and services is booming. According to one recent survey by WWF, online searches for ‘sustainable’ goods have increased by 71 per cent since 2016. This has translated into growing pressure throughout supply chains for organisations to demonstrate ‘green’ credentials. Many companies are now actively reporting their ‘environmental impact’ and committing to long-term goals like ‘carbon neutrality’.

Notice all the terms in apostrophes. Today’s environmental agenda is filled with these buzzwords, many of which have no universally agreed definition. In fact, all of the terms highlighted above can be used in varying, and sometimes misleading, ways.

Greenwashing

Misleading customers or stakeholders into believing a company, product or service is doing more for the environment than it is in reality is called greenwashing.

Unfortunately, greenwash is not uncommon. Sometimes it’s rather obvious, like a fossil fuel company advertising that it is leading the way to cleaner energy, when in reality such activities only make up a tiny proportion of its business. Sometimes it’s less obvious, and may even occur despite good intentions. For example, a business that chooses to purchase carbon offsets and promote itself as ‘carbon neutral’, without making any change in reality to its own operations, could easily be accused of greenwashing.

Research shows that an alarming 40 per cent of ‘green’ claims being made by businesses online could be considered misleading, often due to:

• Vague and unclear terms such as ‘eco’ or ‘sustainable’ without adequate explanation or evidence
• Own brand ‘eco’ logos and labels not associated with any recognised body or certification
• Hiding or omitting certain information to make products or services appear more environmentally friendly than they actually are.

The proliferation of greenwashing is causing rising scepticism amongst stakeholders. A recent YouGov poll found that two thirds of people are now wary of environmental and social claims made by brands. Separate research found that around 60 per cent of institutional investors believe greenwashing is blocking them from delivering on their sustainable investment goals, while the vast majority of individual investors say they find it hard to trust business’ claims at face value.

There is even a growing backlash against corporate net zero emissions goals, some of which offer little accountability or any genuine action on the ground.

How to steer clear of trouble

This cynicism is good news in the fight against greenwashing, but it also poses a risk for companies who are trying to do the right thing. Even if you are taking genuine action to improve the impact of your products, services and/or operations, you could get caught up in accusations of greenwashing if you communicate your action poorly.

To ensure businesses don’t fall foul of a stakeholder backlash – or break the law – the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has recently proposed new consumer protection law guidance for environmental claims. Once set into consumer protection law, failing to comply with them could leave businesses facing legal action from consumers or trading standards bodies.

The proposed guidance sets out six principles all businesses should follow:

1. Be truthful and accurate

Businesses must live up to all environmental claims they make. You cannot say something that is factually incorrect, nor overstate or exaggerate the sustainability or environmental impact of your products, services, brand or activities.

In other words, buzzwords like ‘green’ and ‘eco-friendly’ must not be used without proof of positive environmental impact. You also cannot claim that you are environmentally friendly if you are simply complying with legal requirements or an expected minimum standard. Honesty is the best policy – admitting that you aren’t the finished article, but that you are making progress, is likely to be welcomed by stakeholders.

2. Be clear and unambiguous

An environmental claim must be transparent and properly defined. Vague or general terms with multiple meanings should be clearly explained. Claims about future goals or ambitions must only be used if you have a clear, measurable and verifiable strategy to deliver on those goals. The more these goals are embedded in the fabric of your overall business strategy, the better.

3. Do not omit or hide important information

Avoid giving stakeholders the impression that a product, service or business has a positive environmental impact by leaving out the negatives. For example, you cannot state that a product is recyclable if only certain parts of it are. Similarly, you cannot say your business is ‘sustainable’ because of improvements made to your building, if they mask negative impacts in your supply chain.

4. Make fair and meaningful comparisons

If making a comparison between your product and another, it should be like-for-like – the products should be intended for the same purpose and the comparison should be relevant, verifiable and measured using the same metrics.

5. Consider the full lifecycle

Be mindful of the total impact of your business or your products and services when making claims. For example, claiming that an entire product is ‘eco-friendly’ because of the material it is made with could be considered misleading if the benefit is outweighed by negative environmental impacts elsewhere in its lifecycle.

Complying with this rule can also be a useful exercise in helping you to identify and prioritise action where it is most effective – the largest part of your environmental impact is not necessarily the most obvious, or the most visible.

6. Substantiate any claims made

Make sure you can back up any claims you make with robust, credible and up-to-date evidence. Wherever possible, this information should be publicly available.

This requirement can sometimes be satisfied through a respected third-party environmental standard or certification.

These six principles are designed for any business making an environmental claim that is ultimately aimed at the end consumer. But even if that doesn’t apply to you directly, they are good principles to follow for building trust and legitimacy when communicating with your stakeholders and potential customers.

We can help

If you’re unsure about the environmental aspects of your operations or products, want to do more to minimise your impact or need support to give you confidence that your claims are accurate, GC Business Growth Hub’s Resource Efficiency service can help.

Chris Murphy, Digital Innovation Specialist at GC Business Growth Hub, has put together a guide on the five main ecommerce platforms available, detailing their key features and what you need to consider when choosing the platform for your business.

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated the pace of digital transformation. With restrictions imposed across the world, consumers and businesses had to quickly move to the online space to buy, sell and interact with one another.

For some businesses, this meant creating an online shop to serve existing customers. For others who worked exclusively with trade clients, this was an opportunity to move into a new market and start selling directly to the consumer. Whichever the case, it has become evident that over the past year many companies have prioritised ecommerce, positioning it at the core of their business models and rightly so. According to Gartner research, digital commerce has become a growth accelerator for most organisations and those with digital commerce will see higher growth than those without.

Setting up an ecommerce website can be an important investment for many businesses though, so you must ensure the right digital approach is taken. You don’t want to pay over the odds but cheaper isn’t always better and a platform that supports the needs of your business today may not necessarily support your business of the future.

Comparing different platforms, weighing up the potential benefits of one platform over another and establishing which is the best platform for your business, can be difficult. Some of the most important factors to consider include price, technical support, payment options, ease of use, features, themes, scalability, functionality, SEO optimisation, mobile friendliness and security.

In addition, you’ll need to plan ahead to ensure that you choose a platform that can support future growth.

In this guide we will explore some of the most popular ecommerce platforms for SMEs that can rapidly transform your business.

Five Ecommerce Platforms for SMEs

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is ideal for established SMEs looking to grow. The platform is available in four different versions and each offer a host of built-in features.

Setup can be a little trickier than some of the above and the platform provides only a limited range of free templates. Security is of the highest standard and they offer 24/7 support.

There are plenty of payment options for customers and there are no transaction fees. The interface is easy to use, good for multi-channel selling and SEO performs well.

The platform makes scaling up easy, but this can quickly become expensive for larger stores.

Pros: Security, Support, SEO

Cons: Limited free templates, Tricky set-up

Shopify

Shopify is a scalable ecommerce platform that allows you to create your own online store, which is ideal for businesses looking to grow rapidly. Shopify provides 24/7 support with easy setup and navigation for beginners.

The platform is available in a number of different versions, from Lite to Advanced, and fees can increase accordingly. A monthly fee applies to use the platform’s services and there are transaction fees if you don’t use Shopify payments.

Setup is straight forward, and the platform provides easy to understand instructions on how to customise your site, add products and manage business operations through a simple central dashboard.

The platform is Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant and works with over 2,500 apps. All sites have SEO optimisation built in and you can manage all of your business from your phone. Customers can also access your online store and make purchases via their mobiles. There are a whole host of payment options for customers, ranging from PayPal and Apple Pay to Amazon Pay and even Cryptocurrency.

Pros: Easy to use, great support, multiple pay options, smart phone compatible

Cons: Cost, transaction fees

Squarespace

Squarespace is a good choice for SMEs that want a creative look and feel to their ecommerce platform, offering a variety scalability and customisation options.

Setup is as simple as picking a template and making the desired adjustments to suit your business needs, and free trials are offered so you can test usability. Templates are fully adaptive and flexible with a clean-cut interface, making it a user-friendly experience for both the business and the customer, performing perfectly well on mobiles too.

You can monitor your businesses performance with analytics which provides an overall view. There are built in security features and support is available 24/7.

Transaction fees are applied and charged at 3%, which is higher than other platforms. SEO doesn’t perform as well as WordPress, but there are plug ins available to improve this.

Pros: Beautiful designs, free trial, easy to use

Cons: SEO performance, high transaction fees

Wix

Wix is perfect for small scale SMEs looking to launch an ecommerce website quickly as it provides a platform where you can build your store and get it ready to go using the free plan, with fees charged when you go live.

It is easy to set up and use, with drag and drop functionality. The cost is low, including a lifetime free plan but there are only a limited number of templates, speed can sometimes be an issue and it doesn’t perform as well on SEO as other platforms.

Pros: Low cost, easy to use, free set up

Cons: Limited templates, SEO performance, speed

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free, open-source, ecommerce plugin for WordPress. It is designed for small to large online merchants using WordPress. It is completely customisable and flexible platform, WooCommerce gives you total control over your online store.

Setup is simple, with a number of different themes to choose from and a wizard to take you through the process.

Customers will find the site easy to navigate and there are plugins and extra functionality available at a cost.

It is mobile friendly, which means that you can make changes and access your products and services from your smartphone.

The platform collaborates with Google Analytics to provide up to date information and statistics on all your business happenings via an easy to understand dashboard.

Although use is free and there are no transaction fees, tech support can be lacking and lots of plugins come at a cost which can add up. And since it requires hosting, security is down to the business owner.

Pros: Free, no transaction fees, good SEO

Cons: Security not included, cost of plugins, tech support

In summary…

Choosing an ecommerce platform is dependent on the business and its needs. To summarise your key considerations when choosing a platform are:

And if in doubt GC Business Growth Hub’s Digital Innovation team is on hand to support you: get in touch here.