Understanding Greenwashing Jargon
At Usher Plant Care, we are Organic Landcare Professionals who aim for sustainable plant health care and tick management methods…and we homebrew regenerative compost teas.
That’s a lot of lingo!
Are you confused by arboriculture marketing buzzwords? You’re not alone. That’s because unfortunately, businesses guilty of “greenwashing” would love to confuse you into buying their so-called “natural” products and services. To be honest, although there are official federal guidelines for organic foods and farms, there aren’t any of these standards in the plant healthcare industry yet.
I constantly come across harmful, lab-engineered materials being passed off as healthy/eco-friendly by using tricky wording. Let’s decode these terms a bit.
As related to arboriculture, here’s a quick guide:
NATURAL - a vague term that is often used to describe a product that is derived from an organic source but synthetically modified. A slippery term for sure. Nature and people suffer the unwanted fallout. Ask questions and look deeper. This can be greenwashing.
ORGANIC - leave out the bad stuff! Materials used are nature-sourced instead of lab-created. ex: using targeted biological controls found in nature rather than broad-spectrum chemicals.
SUSTAINABLE - neutral, perpetual, effective systems! Systems in harmony with nature that don’t use materials/methods that diminish natural resources. ex: planting native shrubs in healthy soil rather than planning poorly and using infinite inputs to “force” growth
REGENERATIVE - methods that heal, restore & replenish! Aims to create diverse systems that actually regenerate rather than just sustain - positive instead of neutral if you will. ex: employing compost teas to establish, support and spread healthy soil microbiology rather than chemical fertilizers that promote one plant’s health one time but destroys soil health overall
This is oversimplifying some very important topics that I hope interest you to dig further. We encourage you to think twice and do some research before buying a “natural” bug spray or signing a contract with mosquito control company advertising “natural” methods. You deserve better and so does our environment.