Yesterday the ACCC announced they will be coming down on businesses falsely claiming to be 'sustainable', 'green' or 'environmentally friendly'. Greenwashing is the term used when green marketing techniques are deceptively used to mislead buyers to believe that their products/policies are environmentally friendly. 

Businesses must prove any environmental or sustainability claims when marketing their goods and services, ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard said. Ms Rickard said improving the veracity of environmental claims will protect buyers and ensure competitive conduct in the market. 

What makes a product 'green', 'environmentally friendly' and 'sustainable'? Ones that consider less impact on the environment throughout their entire lifecycle - manufacturing stage, transporting stage, product use/ reuse stages, and disposal stage. It is a process that should be continually worked at improving. At Tea Trees, we believe we have designed a refill product that is working hard to protect our environment at every stage. 

At Tea Trees, we strive to be transparent and accurate in all our communications. Our branding and the language we use is explained below. 

1. Less Carbon Emissions: Our products are very small and light (tablets are 8 grams) to manufacture and transport, producing far less carbon dioxide than our competitors full bottles of handwash and cleaning products. We use Sendle and Australia Post to ship our orders within Australia. They are both 100% carbon neutral meaning Co2 emissions are 100% offset.

2. Re-use: Our fundamental aim is to minimise single use plastic waste within Australian homes. And we are successfully doing this one refill tablet at a time! Our bottles can be reused over and over again. Our first FOMO foaming handwash bottle put to use 1.5 years ago is on its 18th refill tablet and still working perfectly! We love nothing more than a new Tea Trees customer who purchases refill tablets without a bottle knowing they are reusing bottles they already have lying around their homes :) 

3. Gentle Ingredients: Our products have no parabens, chlorides, ammonias or palm oils in them. Our new FOMO foaming handwash and cleaning ranges are vegan. We constantly receive feedback from customers saying our soaps are so gentle on their skin and don't agitate conditions such as eczema, and our cleaning products emit no fumes like other products. Our ingredients are listed on our website for all to see. 

4. Recycle: Our cleaning bottles are made from 100% recycled RPET plastic. And all our bottles and packaging can be recycled (except our tablet wrappers which are currently made from recycled paper, aluminium foil and a pvc wrapping - working on this atm!). Our postage satchels and packing tape are biodegradable.

While the ACCC works towards fine tuning what defines terms like 'sustainable', 'green' or 'environmentally friendly', we'll continue to be transparent and work towards broadening our refill product range for all Australian homes... and accurately communicate how we'll be doing this.