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Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed B.

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Speaker 1: Follow this and our Wide Ranger podcasts now on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Let's talk about greenwashing. This on the back of an

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Speaker 2: Australian court has ordered glad owner Clorox to pay eight

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Speaker 2: point twenty five million dollars for fossil more misleading representations

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Speaker 2: about bags partly made or of recycled ocean plastic. The

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Speaker 2: offending garbage bags were partly made of Indonesian plastic source

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Speaker 2: from communities that were miles away from any shoreline. To

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Speaker 2: chat about this more, we're joined by Rebecca Styles, Consumer

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Speaker 2: NZ Investigative team leader Rebecca Good.

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Speaker 3: Afternoon him any relation to Harry Styles? I wish, I wish, Hey,

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Speaker 3: Rebecca Styles. What is green washing?

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Speaker 4: So? Basically, greenwashing is a misleading claim under the Fair

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Speaker 4: Trading Act. So, in particularly for greenwashing, it's a pright

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Speaker 4: that makes itself appear better for the environment than other

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Speaker 4: similar products on the shelves.

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Speaker 3: What are the punishments of a company is caught green washing?

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Speaker 4: Well, for New Zealand's penalties are actually quite light in

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Speaker 4: comparison to the big pine that Floric Scott so under

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Speaker 4: the Fair Trading Act, it's six hundred thousand dollars fine,

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Speaker 4: So that is quite light for it, especially for these

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Speaker 4: big multinational companies, And it's not much of a deterrent

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Speaker 4: to stop greenwashing. So we would just support a regulator

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Speaker 4: upping those fines, and upping the fines mean that it's

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Speaker 4: more roof while for their time and energy to actually

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Speaker 4: take these prosecutions so that it becomes a bigger deterrent

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Speaker 4: for these companies.

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Speaker 3: And is it prevalent in New Zealand? Are you seeing

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Speaker 3: more of it? Is it something that's that's growing as

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Speaker 3: a problem.

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Speaker 4: In some way, it feels a bit insidious because I

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Speaker 4: think any walk along the supermarket aisles you will come

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Speaker 4: across sort of meaningless terms things like green and natural

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Speaker 4: and environmentally friendly, eco, sustainable, There's all sort of these

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Speaker 4: environmental buzzwords but are sort of not backed up or

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Speaker 4: seem pretty meaningless on some products. So it is around,

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Speaker 4: but it feels like it's so much of it around

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Speaker 4: at the moment that it's almost, you know, I can't

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Speaker 4: be the fast for the trees type of thing.

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Speaker 3: Is there a version of green washing that isn't exactly illegal,

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Speaker 3: but it's still gross in a way, like safe for example,

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Speaker 3: you're on an airline and they're celebrating their greenness by

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Speaker 3: serving your food with bamboo knives and forks while you're

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Speaker 3: blasting aviation fuel on around the world flight? Is that

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Speaker 3: so they're not It's like almost like a green distraction.

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Speaker 3: It's like, look at the way we're doing this over here,

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Speaker 3: and don't look at what we're doing over there very much.

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Speaker 4: It feels very much like window dressing, doesn't it. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: And I think Uno a few years ago I wrote

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Speaker 4: about Any Zealand for their plant based cups, and that's

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Speaker 4: not much good yet when you're burning all that yet,

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Speaker 4: really it's a bit of a toe congestion. So it's

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Speaker 4: very much tinkering out the edges, but not tackling the

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Speaker 4: huge problem of what's being put in fiel thing. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Has it got to the point where bee where companies

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Speaker 2: they you know, the trust on from consumers to believe

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Speaker 2: that these companies are doing environmental good for the planet

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Speaker 2: or whatever they might be doing. But that trust is

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Speaker 2: just completely lost now and most consumers will look at

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Speaker 2: this stuff and say, I think that's probably nonsense because

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Speaker 2: I've seen so many examples of that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you should be able to trust what's

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Speaker 4: on the label. You know, you expect a bit of

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Speaker 4: puffery with marketing and stuff, but essentially the essence of

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Speaker 4: what's said on products should be true and you should

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Speaker 4: be able to rely on it. And there has been

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Speaker 4: calls overseas for these green claims that a should be

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Speaker 4: checked before they go on to market so that consumers

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Speaker 4: can be very assured. Because it's also a competitive advantage.

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Speaker 4: If you're essentially misleading customers and you know, earning more

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Speaker 4: money on the back of that misleading claim. You know,

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Speaker 4: it's an anti competitive behavior, so it's good for other

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Speaker 4: businesses and for consumers.

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Speaker 3: Is because sometimes it seems to me that a company

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Speaker 3: shouldn't be allowed to continue. I'm not going to name

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Speaker 3: the name of it, doesn't cause get it wrong, but

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Speaker 3: it was a while back, and this isn't quite green washing.

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Speaker 3: I guess it's sort of a moral form of washing.

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Speaker 3: But you know, a free range selling eggs and saying

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Speaker 3: that they're free range and selling a whole lot of

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Speaker 3: eggs as free range, people are paying more for them,

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Speaker 3: and then there's an investigation and you find out though

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Speaker 3: it were never free range. Doesn't that feel like that

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Speaker 3: should be a company ending situation because you've lied to people,

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Speaker 3: People have paid money. It's come out of the consumers,

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Speaker 3: you know, pocket they thought they were buying free range

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Speaker 3: eggs because they care about that, they haven't. It seems

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Speaker 3: odd when you see a company continuing on they've paid

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Speaker 3: a fine, but you see what I'm saying.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, a similarly erodes trust, and I certainly would as

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Speaker 4: a customer, would steer clear of that particular brand. But yeah,

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Speaker 4: the marketplace is such a you know, the ethical concerns,

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Speaker 4: what ingredients come from, the fly chain. The marketplace is

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Speaker 4: just so complex for consumers at the moment, and we

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Speaker 4: just don't have the time to stand in the aisle

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Speaker 4: for our have to unpack all of these claims. So

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Speaker 4: it just makes it so much more important. You know,

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Speaker 4: if things were checked before they went to the market,

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Speaker 4: it would make life a lot easier for everyone. I

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Speaker 4: think what.

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Speaker 2: Would be a fair punishment for those companies found greenwashing

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Speaker 2: and making up you know, effectively they are lies. What

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Speaker 2: would be an appropriate punishment in New Zealand? I mean,

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Speaker 2: could it get to the point where you take that

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Speaker 2: product supermarkets are forced to take that product off the

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Speaker 2: shelves for a week, Maybe a.

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Speaker 4: Fine in proportion to the profit the company has made

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Speaker 4: or for that product, and those claims would be a

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Speaker 4: good idea. Certainly, at the moment the six hundred thousand

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Speaker 4: dollars is not working, so we would definitely support a

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Speaker 4: review of the penalties of the Bear Trading Act going

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Speaker 4: up quite substantially to act as a deterrant. And I

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Speaker 4: think this raising the penalty would be a good encouragement

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Speaker 4: to businesses to look at how they're labeling their products

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Speaker 4: and whether they're being miss learning or not.

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Speaker 2: Rebecca has been great to chat with you. Thank you

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Speaker 2: very much for your time. My pleasure that is Rebecca Styles.

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Speaker 2: She is Consumer insid investigative team leader for more.

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Speaker 1: From News Talk set B. Listen live on air or online,

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