A bottled-water ad trumpets new, recycled packaging. A billboard promotes a new, fuel-efficient SUV. A window cleaning product claims to be free of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons — substances that have been banned for 30 years.

Today, more and more products are claiming to be environmentally friendly.

A 2009 study by TerraChoice, an environmental marketing firm, found the number of products making environmental claims had increased by 79 per cent from a previous study two years earlier.

Yet the same study found 98 per cent of those products were guilty of “greenwashing” — making false or misleading claims regarding the company’s environmental practices or the environmental benefits of a product or service.

Few of those claims were outright lies.

However, “there are misleading claims being made, and quite a lot of them,” said Kate Rusnak, spokesperson for TerraChoice.

The first study in 2007 found patterns which can mislead customers, labelled the “Seven Sins of Greenwashing” (see sidebar below).

Overly broad claims, or ones which offer no evidence to support them, were among the most common greenwashing techniques.

Brian Burns, a specialist in ecological design and a professor in the Carleton University School of Industrial Design, said most consumers don’t have the time to review the environmental impacts of the products they buy.

“The success of greenwashing is because we have become much more distanced from our products,” said Burns. “It shouldn’t be up to everybody to know where their apple came from.”

In the meantime, what can a consumer do?

Eco-labels can simplify things, said Trevor Bowden, co-founder of Big Room Inc., the company behind Ecolabel Index, a website listing over 300 environmental certifications in use worldwide.

Eco-labels such as Green Seal and EcoLogo appear on a product packaging and indicate a product meets certain environmental criteria.

“Consumers are looking for a signal or sign that can help them make purchases that are green,” said Bowden. “It’s hard to understand the ingredients on a bottle of shampoo.”

However, for consumers wanting to buy greener products, some eco-labels can be misleading.

TerraChoice’s 2009 greenwashing study uncovered a new sin: worshipping false labels.

This involves companies creating their own certification systems, giving the appearance of a third-party endorsement when it is in fact an internal system.

Rusnak said some of these internal systems involve proper environmental testing, but don’t have the transparency of a third-party certification.

“It’s still a bit of a Wild West out there in terms of eco-labels,” said Rusnak. “There are so many of them out there.”

Vague terms such as “non-toxic” and “all-natural” are meaningless unless clearly defined, according to the studies.

Rusnak suggested some greenwashed products may still be better choices than those that make no environmental claim.

Even if claims are exaggerated, a product that eliminates a harmful ingredient is still a better environmental choice.