As green consumers we're all engaged in a battle to stay one step ahead of the greenwash that's cropping up in new forms all the time.

The trickery used by marketing bods is getting subtler and cleverer by the day and it's therefore important to stay up to date with their techniques.This online guide from Futerra is worth reading even if you do consider yourself clued-up on greenwash, and only takes a few minutes to read. The 'ten signs of greenwash' list is particularly worth a look, if only to ensure you remember the basic warning signs next time you're out in the wilds of the high street.

Banana Republic is already in the doghouse as far as most self respecting ethical shoppers are concerned: pulled up on its factory working conditions when its London store opened last month, the chain is in dire need of a little greening.

But I'm not sure it's achieved that with its latest move: an 'organic' range, consisting of a mere 5% organic cotton.

Given that the Soil Association stipulates that a garment must contain at least 70% organic fibre to be labeled as 'made from organic materials', this is not only a poor attempt, but also blatent mislabling.

Cadburys continues in its quest to redeem itself on the green front by bringing out a boxless 'eco egg' this easter.

Dispensing with the mounds of cardboard that usually encase its easter eggs, Cadbury will be selling Mini Eggs, Dairy Milk and Dairy Milk Caramel easter eggs in foil, with moulded plastic casing. Is that really any better for the company's carbon footprint? Mark Barthel, of packaging campaign and consultancy group Wrap, would agress, and said: "This is good news for both the consumer and the environment but also for Cadbury, as cutting waste also means cutting costs."

[Via the Guardian]

It's hardly going to stop the ice-caps melting, but if you're a big chocolate fan, this one claims to 'do good as well as taste good'. Let's have a look at why...

Terra Pass's Climate Change Chocolate bar is the only carbon offset confectionery I'm aware of, and each bar comes with a verified TerraPass offset of 133 pounds of carbon dioxide reduction. It also comes in a wrapper decorated with 15 tips for lightening your environmental impact.

Sounds er, great. But the chocolate isn't fairtrade and I'm not even sure the wrappers are recycled so score zero there. As for the messages on the packet, these sound about as likely to get through to young chocoholics as the 'save the animals' messages on those old Cadbury's Wildlife Bars, which were mostly just resented by kids for being so insubstantial. Green bandwagon ahoy!

Last week they wowed us with the 3110 Evolve and now Nokia is developing the theme with a concept eco-mobile. The manufacture would make use of environmentally friendly materials such as plant-based plastics and recycled steel. Additionally, there would be no traditional battery charing required; perhaps predictably, the Eco Sensor Project would make use of a solar panel, although it would be attached to a bracelet rather than to the phone itself.

This is because the bracelet would also provide other information, such as weather reports and indeed the health of the wearer through tracking vital signs. We can only assume it would also function as a watch, although the chances of anyone in this fashion-fickle world wearing the same bracelet daily (especially some men) seem pretty slim. Is this a truly green solution that might see the light one day?

There are some products that simply don't need to be labeled 'organic', but it seems there are actually people stupid enough out there to spend money on organic water. Which has got to be up there with 'instant powdered water ('just add h20!') in the daft product stakes...

The bottles have been spotted in American branches of Safeway, and is undoubtedly much pricier than the (equally pointless) regular bottled water sold alongside it. No word on whether the containers are biodegradable or eco-friendly in any way, but the makers were probably right to assume that anyone misguided enough to buy the water in the first place would overlook that detail.

The water joins these organic cigarettes in a growing list of 'unnecessary organics' appearing on the market at the moment. I'd argue that while the health benefits are obviously moot, growing tobacco organically has got to be an improvement on using pesticides to grow cancer-causing crops!

Seen any bizarre or unnecessary organics lately? Let us know!

In today's Guardian, Lucy Aitken talks about the ethical shopper's worst nightmare: Greenwash. We're all aware that the claims to greenness made by many companies are at best, exaggerated, but how clued up are we really about being tricked into buying eco-friendly products that are anything but?

Firstly, if you've been taken in, don't panic. Marketing bods do everything in their power to make us believe the stuff they sell us is greener than freshly-cut grass, so you shouldn't be ashamed to admit it when you buy the latest bit of 'green gear' only to twig later that it came in yards of plastic packaging, or was transported halfway across the world to get into your eager hands. There is even an award for the worst examples of greenwash, whose 'winners' will be announced later this month.

So, if it's happened to you and you'd like to prevent future mishaps, we've prepared a brief guide to detecting greenwash before it hits you in the pocket. Follow the jump for the rest of the tips.

1. Watch out for over-use of jargon.

By and large, companies that make the most noise about helping the environment are the ones that are actually doing the least, and those that do make a difference will be honest about what they are doing and - crucially - what they're not. Two companies being very honest about their efforts at the moment are Eurostar and BSkyB.

I think this might just be the most pointless 'eco gadget' ever produced. If you're as perplexed as I was by this specimen, allow me to explain: the device is intended for displaying grown-up toys and figurines, rotating them through 360 degrees so you can witness the full horror of their naffness from all angles. And it's, er, powered by the sun.

Still, if geeks are going to insist on sharing their plastic girlfriend-substitutes with the rest of the world electronically, I guess we can be grateful they're not draining the national grid in the process! [Via Gizmodo]

HarperCollins - publishers of such literary treats as ‘A Long Way Gone’ by Ishmael Beah and ‘The God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Roy - has announced that it is to use Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper for all its publications.

It is estimated that the wood and paper industries are contributing to mass deforestation, where every two seconds sees the loss of ancient forests that can be as big as a football pitch. The Forest Stewardship Council works to reduce this figure by working with local communities to supply sustainable wood from forests that are managed with respect for the environment, wildlife and the local population.

Josephine Cox, whose paperback “The Loner” is one of the first to be published on FSC paper, is pleased to be a part of a creative industry that is taking the environment seriously. “I’m delighted that my book is being printed on environmentally-friendly paper. I think we all need to do our bit to help the environment.”

Paul Mitchell already has good ethical points for not testing any of their products on animals, but now they have taken their ethical commitments to a new level. Check out their website, Head For Change,which looks organic, feels ethical and puts its ‘people’ and ‘planet’ sections before its products, literally. They now have a new partnership with American Forests, an international non-profit organisation that preserves and grows a healthier environment through trees. Sales of Paul Mitchell’s Tea Tree range will fund the planting of enough trees throughout America and Europe to offset all carbon emissions from the brand’s manufacture and distribution. In addition, a portion of the sales will fund American Forests Global ReLeaf and WildLeaf programmes to further preserve our natural resources on a global scale. The AF parternership is in addition to other non-profit eco organizations that the company already sponsors.

Related stories: Cruelty free beauty online | Natura Organics vegan haircare

Here’s a company jumping on the green bandwagon to shift their products in quite a convincing way. Servis claim their dishwashers are green because they use much less water than washing up by hand. According to them, washing dishes by hand uses 45 litres of water whilst an average dishwasher only uses between 12 and 16 litres per wash. Their Servis M4705 dishwasher uses an average 14 litres. The company also claims that another benefit of a machine is superior washing performance due to high temperatures used by dishwashers. Well, that claim jars with ecogeeks because that means heavy use on electricity – although admittedly you also have to heat the hot water to handwash too. This is especially if you have a hot water cylinder, which means that you often have to heat an entire tank just to do the dishes in the summer. The Servis does come with a rapid 30°C wash programme, which would certainly add green points to the machine argument. It’s a tough call to decide which is actually more eco friendly, but certainly gives a lot of food for thought. Let us know your opinion.

Servis M4705 Dishwasher - Energy rating: A, wash Performance: A, drying Efficiency: B and priced at around £249.

Related stories : 10 eco-things to do with a lemon – freshen up your dishwasher | Green home-made all-purpose cleaner

Here's an interesting twist on the statistics we're being bombarded with by companies making claims about their greenness: according to research by Ipsos MORI, 80% of Britons think that companies pretend to be ethical just to sell more products, compared to just over two-thirds in 2005.

The survey was carried out for SEE Potential, a new ethical label. It’s another one of these ethical stamps which we’re supposed to recognise on a product’s packaging to make us feel easier that what we are buying is good to the people who make it and to the environment. SEE ask companies 35 very basic questions about the human rights and environmental considerations that go into making a product. If a company meets the criteria, and can provide evidence of ethical behaviour if SEE request it, they get the stamp. All of this comes at a fee to the company for the privaledge of putting a stamp on their product which will hopefully convince customers that the product is ethical. Does this work?

Related stories: Gareth Kane on marketing, labels and greenwash | New Future Friendly label

Last week, I attended a briefing on the new Future Friendly label, which will soon be appearing on products that have in some way been declared 'good for the environment'.

In principle, the labels are a good idea, as they are all about encouraging consumers to take personal responsibility for the environment on the level of small actions anyone can take on a daily basis. There are lots of ways this is undoubtedly a good thing: if everyone made the tiny effort of not leaving appliances on standby, we'd collectively save the equivalent output of two and a half power stations a year. Small actions count.

But many have expressed scepticism at the introduction of these labels, not least because the labeled products' claims to greenness are in many cases, pretty flimsy...

The green trend is growing and according to a new Norwich Union study, 68% of Brits do it out of guilt and to “keep up with the Joneses.” A significant 56% consider unethical living to be a social taboo equivalent to drink driving and a whopping 90% admit to telling green fibs, pretending to live more ethical lifestyles and feeling obliged to live more ethically. Quite a number (20%) don’t know how to go about being greener, and 53% say they refuse to alter their lifestyles because of an amalgamation of confusion, lack of time, or objections to being told what to do.

Last night, Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, The Great Green Smokescreen, took issue with the booming carbon off-setting companies, that are claiming to be taking steps towards addressing global warming. With green being the new black, companies such as Barclays, Dell, HSBC and Sky are falling over themselves to join in on the business of carbon off-setting.

Some would have us believe that paying to have a few trees planted or even just dedicating a few trees to carbon off-setting, or, funding already existing renewable energy projects, are ways to ‘tackle’ global warming. However, appearances are often deceptive and many of the so-called carbon off-setting projects don’t stand up to scrutiny.