A few weeks ago, we wrote about some of the more common marketing ploys being used by companies in an attempt to persuade consumers that products are environmentally friendly. In the past few months there has been a surge of advertisements evangelising the greener side of many popular products so here at GreenUpAndGo.com, we thought we would take a closer look at some of the more popular claims in an attempt to decide how green these claims really are.

Car Trade-Ins
First up, we have the car companies offering cash incentives for trading in your old car, regardless of age or condition. Many of these deals are on the assumption that the old car will be scrapped. Older cars are supposedly worse for the environment because they release a lot of fumes and carbon emissions. Actually, this deal really isn’t that great. It’s true that an old, poorly maintained car will usually be more polluting than a new generation car however not all old cars are poorly maintained. Older cars can be lighter than newer ones meaning fuel consumption – and therefore carbon emissions – are actually lower than the newer car. Also, several tonnes of carbons dioxide are released into the atmosphere during the manufacture and disposal of cars. Therefore if your old banger is in good nick, it might actually be better for the environment to keep it than to buy a new one.

Offset your flights
Flying is meant to be one of the transport methods with the highest carbon emissions around so it’s only natural that airlines want us to try and offset some of these carbon emissions. The theory behind this is simple – you can repair the damage done by your flight by offsetting your carbon emissions by paying an offset scheme. Often this will involve planting a tree.

It sounds brilliant but carbon offset schemes are poorly audited and there is little evidence to show that the schemes work. Trees can help trap heat close to the ground and this possibly negates their efforts at absorbing carbon dioxide. It appears that the best place to plant trees if you want to offset your carbon emissions is to plant them in the tropics.

There is also no one way to calculate how much carbon needs to be offset. Ask a set of carbon offsetting companies and they will all show you varying figures.

Some airlines offer carbon offset tickets where you pay a little extra for a ticket and the extra money is put into carbon offsetting schemes around the world. British Airways claim to be the first airline to offer this scheme – which is all well and good but according to research by British newspaper The Times, it appears that few of their booking operators are aware that the scheme exists.

Hybrid and Electric Cars
Car manufacturers are especially guilty of misleading green advertising. Toyota have already had their wrists slapped over misleading adverts over their Prius model. Hybrids aren’t all that much better for the environment – a Jeep Wrangler is actually deemed greener than a Toyota Prius when the entire lifecycle of the car is taken into consideration. In terms of emissions, there are actually ‘normal’ cars on the roads that have lower emissions than the Prius – an example of this is VW’s Polo BlueMotion which has CO2 emissions of 102g/km, 2g less than the Prius.

Electric cars require an electricity source so that their batteries can be charged – whilst the majority of electricity is made from power plants powered by fossil fuels, this is not a carbon friendly option.

Many green schemes appear to be exploiting the consumers’ burning quest to ‘go green’ whilst making the companies a tidy profit at the same time. Companies which are making a serious attempt to go green should be applauded, not knocked, however it is important that if consumers are buying a product because of it’s ‘green’ credentials, they look beyond the marketing hype at the real facts behind the issue.

Popularity: 19% [?]