Green Product Trends: More Launches, More Sales

Research ranging from product launches to retail sales shows that green products are staying strong, with long-time green companies like Seventh Generation seeing strong sales and mainstream companies launching more green lines, AdAge reports.

Companies have launched 458 products that claim to be “sustainable,” “environmentally friendly” or “eco friendly,” according to Datamonitor’s Product Launch Analytics. If that trend continues there’ll be 1,570 new green products launched this year, triple the amount launched in 2008, which saw double the amount launched in 2007.

Although just because products carry such claims doesn’t mean the claims are truthful, as research firm TerraChoice has found out when comparing environmental claims to its Seven Sins of Greenwashing.

Following Clorox’s launch of its Green Works cleaning line in early 2008, many other major brands like SC Johnson and Arm & Hammer have put out greener versions of their products, changing their product formulation, packaging, or both. Though it seems there is plenty of room for competing brands, as Seventh Generation has seen sales go up 50 percent last year and 20 percent in March compared to previous years, making it appear that all the new products are just bringing more consumers into the fold.

Wal-Mart, too, has been a big player in greening up mainstream products through efforts like critiquing its suppliers’ packaging and offering only concentrated laundry detergent. The company is releasing a 100 percent recycled content private label toilet paper, while Kimberly-Clark brand Scott puts out a range of recycled content paper products.

Overall sales at retailers like Wal-Mart and Costco, though, haven’t been as strong as in natural-food stores, which saw sales increase 10.9 percent in 2008, with sales growth in December higher than 7 percent.

And as more consumers and companies switch away from bottled water, they still want clean, safe water, which has led to a 22.2 percent increase in sales of Brita filters and a 15.2 percent increase in sales of Pur filters in the four weeks ending in March 22. According to Information Resources Inc. data from Deutsche Bank, water filter sales increases have stayed in double digits in the past two years.

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