Consumers want to know the impact that beef production has on the land, the source of fibres used in printer paper and how best to recycle batteries for small appliances, new research has found.
The draft findings of a new research project, Buy Better, will put pressure on businesses to provide clearer information on labels and in their advertising about the most environmentally damaging aspects of their products.
Rather than only providing basic information, consumers who want to make green decisions when buying anything from meat to cleaning products should have access to a life cycle assessment of the products, the research says.
This would reveal the “biggest damage-causing parts of their products” which are often not disclosed.
Funded by the NSW and Victorian governments, the project is part of Green Capital, the business sustainability arm of the Total Environment Centre. It involved representatives from industry bodies, environmental labelling and certification schemes, activist groups, big retailers, government agencies and academics.
The draft findings, which focused on printer paper, cleaning products, meat and dairy and small electronics, will be presented at a series of seminars in Melbourne today and Sydney next week.
The executive director of the Total Environment Centre, Jeff Angel, said there was a “crisis of confidence” in green consumer goods because of confusing labels and conflicting claims about the sustainability of many products.
“Too much complexity and too many processes are getting in the way of consumers being able to make sensible and effective purchasing decisions that support better outcomes for the human and natural environments,” he said.
“We know our findings will challenge the marketing by some big industries and corporations but if we want to make the biggest change to their environmental impacts then they have to change the most material aspects of their products.”
Mr Angel said the research aimed to find better ways to help consumers make the “greenest” purchasing decisions, whether it be highlighting the “tsunami of electronic waste items and batteries building up in a digital age” or knowing which forests are used to source paper pulp in printer paper.
“Major global and Australian industries are in danger of missing the point about what’s most important for their products from a green perspective,” Mr Angel said.
