One of the challenges faced by businesses and governments as we move toward a post-carbon society is that the rules and standards seem to keep changing. As with the organics industry in the early 1980s, it is difficult to identify what “sustainable business” really means, how it is best measured, and how to compare the actions of one company with those of another with any kind of similar yardstick.

There are a handful of widely recognized products (ISO 14001, GRI, Six Sigma) that track, analyze and allow apples-to-apples reporting on company operations practices, but for most consumer products no single standard has yet prevailed. This leaves room in the current “green rush” for misleading marketing, and for brand competition as companies position themselves to fill the void. Without third party verification or public endorsement, it can be hard to know who to believe. The LEED standard for green building is a success story - the LEED product was developed with broad industry and professional input and consensus, includes a clear approval process, and so has been widely and aggressively accepted and adopted by both public and private developers. A multitude of similar standards are being developed for different types of products, with announcements in recent weeks of new standards for cosmetics and carbon offset products, to name just two.

The cosmetics industry, rife with “natural”, “organic” and “eco-friendly” products with no required content standard, saw a challenge from Burt’s Bees in 2007, to adopt what they are calling The Natural Standard. Environmental Leader recently announced adoption of a national standard specifically for organic cosmetics, Oasis, that has been adopted by 30 companies nationally.

In late 2007, the Voluntary Carbon Standard was launched by three prominent international carbon offset interests. The Standard “provides a robust, new global standard and program for approval of credible voluntary offsets - an rapidly growing industry that has been the target of a great deal of criticism for its lack of standardization.

According to the VCS website: “VCS offsets must be real (have happened), additional (beyond business-as-usual activities), measurable, permanent (not temporarily displace emissions), independently verified and unique (not used more than once to offset emissions).” . The Chicago Climate Exchange offers similar verification as a sort of standard for all of its traders, but does not appear to have adopted the VCS.

At the end of the day the most meaningful standards may be those adopted or created and enforced by nonprofits or regulatory agencies, whether national or international, where no specific commercial benefit is at stake. Until such time as such standards exist, however, caveat emptor.