Reference · maintained since May 2026 · updated 14 Aug 2026

The greenwash glossary

Twenty-six terms we read in client briefs, on competitor landing pages, and occasionally in draft ad copy we then decline to ship. Each gets a blunt definition and the question that separates the claim from the wish. Written by Callum Hodge, who has to police this language in ad accounts for a living; the regulatory references are the UK CMA's Green Claims Code and the EU's 2024 consumer-empowerment rules that start biting in September 2026.

Biodegradable(adj.)

Breaks down eventually, under conditions the label rarely names. A crisp packet in a landfill and a leaf in a forest are both technically on a journey.

Ask instead: Under what conditions, and in how long?

Carbon intensity(n.)

Emissions per unit: per order, per pound of revenue, per thousand impressions. The honest sibling of the absolute number, and the one that survives business growth.

Ask instead: Intensity of what, per what, measured by whom?

Carbon neutral(adj.)

Historically, a claim purchased rather than earned: emissions unchanged, certificates acquired. The EU's 2024 consumer-empowerment rules ban generic neutrality claims built on offsetting from September 2026.

Ask instead: Neutral by reduction, or neutral by receipt?

Carbon negative / climate positive(adj.)

Carbon neutral with ambition. The same offset arithmetic, extended past zero, usually without the supply-chain data that would make the first claim credible.

Ask instead: Show the gross number before the subtraction.

Circular(adj.)

Designed to come back: resale, refill, repair, remanufacture. Real circularity has a return rate someone can print. Decorative circularity has an arrow logo.

Ask instead: What percentage actually comes back?

Compostable(adj.)

Usually means industrially compostable at 58°C in a facility your council may not run. In a home compost bin, many such items simply become litter with a certificate.

Ask instead: Home compostable or industrial only?

Conscious collection(n.)

A capsule line whose virtue is meant to reflect on the other 97% of the catalogue. The collection is usually fine. The halo is the product.

Ask instead: What share of total units does it represent?

Cradle-to-cradle(adj.)

A genuine design standard with certification tiers, and a phrase borrowed freely by brands that stopped at the alliteration.

Ask instead: Certified at which level, for which products?

Eco-friendly(adj.)

Friendly is not a unit. The UK CMA's Green Claims Code has warned against exactly this vagueness since 2021; the phrase persists because it converts.

Ask instead: Friendly compared to what, measured how?

Greenhushing(n.)

Doing the work and hiding it, usually out of legal caution. The quiet inverse of greenwash, and increasingly common as claim regulation tightens.

Ask instead: Nothing. Ask their competitors why they're louder.

Greenwishing(n.)

Sincere targets, no plan. Distinguished from greenwash by intent and from progress by everything else.

Ask instead: What was delivered against last year's target?

GMSF(n.)

The Global Media Sustainability Framework: the ad industry's shared method for estimating media emissions. Imperfect, versioned, and vastly better than adjectives. It's what our carbon column uses.

Ask instead: Which version, and which channels are covered?

Insetting(n.)

Emission reductions inside your own supply chain instead of certificates from outside it. Harder, slower, and the only version of 'compensation' that changes the product.

Ask instead: Inside whose supply chain, verified by whom?

Natural(adj.)

Crude oil is natural. The word carries no environmental information whatsoever and appears on packaging precisely because regulators struggle to falsify it.

Ask instead: Natural is not a claim. What's the claim?

Net zero(n.)

A destination named far more often than mapped. Credible versions have near-term interim targets and a published reduction pathway; the rest have a year ending in zero.

Ask instead: What's the 2030 interim number?

Offset(n.)

A certificate that emissions happened somewhere else, or didn't, or won't, depending on project quality nobody agrees on. A receipt, not a reduction; see declaration 03.

Ask instead: Would the claim survive with the offsets removed?

Plastic-free(adj.)

Frequently true of the product and false of its shipping journey. The claim has a habit of stopping at the warehouse door.

Ask instead: Including the mailer, the tape, and the fill?

Recyclable(adj.)

Capable of being recycled in principle. Whether your area's facility actually does, and whether anyone buys the output, is where the sentence usually ends early.

Ask instead: Recycled where, at what real-world rate?

Recycled content(n.)

A real, checkable number, which is why greenwash prefers 'made with recycled materials', a phrase satisfied by one bottle per batch.

Ask instead: What percentage, of which component?

Regenerative(adj.)

Agriculture's most promising word and marketing's newest acquisition. Genuine programmes name farms, acreage, and practices; the borrowed version names vibes.

Ask instead: Which farms, what practices, since when?

Science-based targets(n.)

Reduction targets validated against a warming pathway by the SBTi. One of the few phrases on this page that arrives with external homework attached.

Ask instead: Validated, or 'committed'? The SBTi lists both.

Scope 1, 2, 3(n.)

Your own combustion, your purchased energy, and everything else. For a DTC brand, scope 3 is usually the overwhelming majority, which is why impressive claims often quietly exclude it.

Ask instead: Does the headline number include scope 3?

Sustainable(adj.)

The hardest-working unfalsifiable word in commerce. We use it ourselves in the phrase 'brands that sell sustainability', and even there it needs the evidence pages behind it.

Ask instead: Sustained at what level, verified by what?

Tree planted per order(n.)

Sometimes a funded forestry programme; sometimes a fraction of a cent routed through an API. Survival rates, land rights, and species are where the versions diverge.

Ask instead: Planted where, surviving at what rate, audited by whom?

Vegan leather(n.)

Often polyurethane, a plastic. The animal-welfare claim is honest; the implied environmental one depends entirely on the material and rarely says so.

Ask instead: Vegan is answered. What's the material?

Zero waste(adj.)

Usually 'zero waste to landfill', which permits incineration, and usually scoped to one facility. The words do more work than the boundary.

Ask instead: Zero measured at which boundary, permitting what?