Earth Day, celebrated every year on April 22, was started in 1970 by Senator Gaylord Nelson as a way to bring environmental issues into the national consciousness. As our understanding of climate change and sustainability has evolved, however, so has the language we use to discuss it. As such, it can be difficult to understand all the jargon or buzzwords thrown around in these conversations. Here’s a guide to help you understand some of the history of the green terminology you might hear around Earth Day and in conversations about living more sustainably. As Kermit says, “It’s not easy being green.”
Biodegradable
A biodegradable product is one that organisms such as bacteria or fungi can break down into other natural elements, carbon dioxide, and water. While almost everything is technically biodegradable (albeit in hundreds of thousands of years), in order for a product to be classified as such, it must decompose into natural materials quickly. Product manufacturers might want to label something as “biodegradable,” but third-party certifiers typically require the process to occur between six and nine months. The word itself first appeared in the English language in 1962, just as environmental issues were beginning to emerge in the national consciousness.
Carbon Neutral
To be carbon neutral is to cancel out the carbon dioxide emitted — from driving, disposing of garbage, or simply existing — by making sure the same amount gets absorbed by trees, plants, machines, or other things. Many eco-minded brands try to incorporate some initiative to become carbon neutral into their company ethos. Take, for example, Cariuma Shoes, which plants trees in the Brazilian rainforest to offset every pair of shoes they sell. One of the earliest appearances of the term “carbon neutral” was in a 1989 U.S. House of Representatives joint hearing: “If we allow the forest to live its natural life, we have a carbon-neutral environment; that is the carbon is returned back to the atmosphere through the decay process.”
Cradle to Cradle
Often abbreviated “C2C,” Cradle to Cradle is the concept of using garbage as an eternal resource, in which all materials are used effectively in a cyclical way. Under this philosophy, there are two different cycles: biological and technological. In the biological cycle, materials used are naturally biodegradable and can be returned to their ecosystem. In the technological cycle, all metals, oil-based plastics, and chemicals should be reused, provided they are not mixed. The C2C methodology was developed by Michael Braungart and William McDonough in 2001 to provide inspiration in building and production.
Fair trade
Fair trade is a system of ethical trade in which a company in a developed country pays a fair price for a product to the producer in a less-developed nation, ensuring fair wages and good working conditions and reducing the chance of exploitation. In terms of sustainability, poor working conditions and low wages often lead to environmental degradation, and many brands that facilitate fair trade require the producers to stick to certain eco-friendly production methods. One of the earliest references in print was in 1973, in The New York Times: “It is time to start a new era of fair-trade relations between the developed and underdeveloped countries, in which… the real value of the latter’s commodities to Western consumers will be recognized.”
Greenwashing
A company or organization is said to be “greenwashing” when it spends resources marketing itself as environmentally friendly without taking the proper steps to minimize its environmental impact. In other words, it’s cashing in on the sustainability trend without putting its money where its mouth is. While this idea has exploded into the public consciousness in the last decade or so, the word has been in use since at least the late 1980s, as seen in a 1989 issue of The Daily Telegraph: “Continuing to ‘greenwash the public’ would be foolish.”
Organic
In an attempt to greenwash, many products are marked as “natural,” which is not the same thing as “organic.” Federal law requires that organic food products be produced without toxic input or genetically engineered ingredients, and that farmers build soil fertility into their practices. No such requirements or regulations exist to mark a product as “natural,” on the other hand. Food labeled as “certified organic” follows specific guidelines regulated by the USDA. While the idea of organic farming has been discussed for most of the 20th century, the OED marks an uptick in usage since the late 1980s.
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