Pond Foundation has today launched a new verification platform that promises to bring much needed transparency and certainty to social, environmental and climate sustainability claims made by organisations across the globe.
Earthtrust is a public platform designed to give businesses and organisations the ability to prove their sustainability claims by bringing radical transparency to a process that has become increasingly opaque and vulnerable to greenwashing.
Earthtrust is being incubated by Pond Foundation, a global non-profit that inspires regenerative action for people and the planet. Pond Foundation supports businesses to understand and eliminate their current and historical carbon footprint, and to build regenerative supply chains. Its newest initiative, Earthtrust, is a platform that acts as a natural verification process for organisations’ sustainability claims.
By presenting all the necessary data and documentation, organisations can evidence that their sustainability claims are genuine, allowing them to differentiate themselves publicly and transparently from those engaged in greenwashing.
“The rapid growth of greenwashing practices is a huge threat to our ability to address the serious issues we’re facing – human rights abuses, environmental damage, and climate change. Growing awareness of the prevalence of the practice is leading to an increasingly cynical view among the public and investors of the sustainability claims made by companies and risks generating widespread disengagement in this vital issue,” said Scott Poynton, Founder and Chief Inspiration Officer at the Pond Foundation.
The European Union recently passed anti-greenwashing legislation that will come into force in 2026. New rules aim to make product labelling clearer and more trustworthy by banning the use of general environmental claims like “environmentally friendly”, “natural”, “biodegradable”, “climate neutral” or “eco” without proof.
In the future, only sustainability labels based on official certification schemes or established by public authorities will be allowed in the EU.
Additionally, the directive will ban claims that a product has a neutral, reduced, or positive impact on the environment because of emissions offsetting schemes, so you can no longer say your cheese is C02 neutral because you planted some trees somewhere.
“While regulators and lawmakers across the globe are waking up and starting to act against the practice, great companies, doing great work are being bundled in with the bad actors. Earthtrust allows those companies to stand apart from the crowd,” he added.
While greenwashing was first coined around 40 years ago in reference to the policy of reusing towels in hotels, the term has since been used to describe the act of organisations providing the public or investors with misleading or false information about their environmental credentials.
A study commissioned by the European Union found that more than half (53%) of green claims on products and services made vague, misleading or unfounded claims with 40% providing absolutely no supporting evidence. In a separate survey commissioned by Google Cloud, 68% of executives interviewed admitted to knowingly greenwashing their environmental claims.
“Greenwashing is a huge and growing problem – the data supports that view. And it is data that is going to help us combat this cynical trend,” said Scott.
“By partnering with Earthtrust and by being completely transparent in their claims, companies that are genuinely making a difference can show their customers and investors exactly how they are reducing their impact on the environment and supporting local communities and sustainability projects,” said Scott.
website URL: https://earthtrust.life/
