Being a sustainable consumer is hard. What's with all these products claiming to be "all natural" and "100% sustainable"? Who do we even believe? With sustainability being a more important factor that consumers take into consideration when shopping, companies are engaging in greenwashing. In 2007, Terrachoice published a report titled "The Six Sins of Greenwashing", in which Scot Case was a lead author. The six sins are as follows:
1) The Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off -- cool, this product uses recycled content! oh wait, the manufacturing process isn't that energy efficient... the marketing of this product only talks about the recycled content it uses, which paints a misleading picture.
2) The Sin of No Proof -- companies can't claim that their product is "emissions-free" without any proof!
3) The Sin of Vagueness -- what exactly does "environmentally friendly" mean? without anything to back that claim up, it really means nothing.
4) The Sin of Irrelevance -- a CFC-free product! That would be cool, except it's irrelevant because CFCs have been banned for over 30 years already.
5) The Sin of Less of Two Evils -- marketing a product as "green", but distracting the consumer from the greater environmental impacts of the product as a whole (eg. reduced methane beef, organic tobacco, etc.)
6) Sin of Fibbing -- this is companies just straight up lying about their sustainability practices. not cool.
Scot Case is vice president of corporate social responsibility and sustainability at the National Retail Federation. In this role, he leads NRF’s Sustainability Council and supports retailer efforts to use their businesses to make the world a better place for everyone.
Case has focused on the intersection of business, environmental and social concerns since the mid-1990s. Throughout Case’s career as a strategist, consultant and sustainability expert, he has worked with organizations including the White House, World Bank, Walmart, McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson, Disney, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and federal, state and local governments around the world. 
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Guest: Scot Case
Hosts/Reporters: Grace Zhang, Eppy Camacho
Audio Editor: Katherine Li
Music: Cali by Wataboi, u said it by Wataboi

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