“Going green” has become enormously popular in the past few years, and the market will continue to grow for as long as it makes money. Small, independently owned and environmentally friendly companies are being bought out by big corporations – Burt’s Bees was recently purchased by Clorox for almost $1 billion.

But can these companies maintain their low impact on the environment if production is ramped up to such a large scale? According to The New York Times, Clorox plans to turn Burt’s Bees into a mainstream American brand sold in big-box stores like Wal-Mart.

Burt’s Bees products used to be found only in natural foods markets and other places reserved for hippies and those willing to take the time to search out quality products. Small companies are environmentally friendly because they are small, produce less waste and use fewer resources. Expanding any company makes it worse for the environment, whether or not they use organic and naturally sourced ingredients.

Companies save money by going green because saving energy means saving money. Buying products from the lady who makes ChapStick at your local farmers market is more environmentally and socially friendly than giving your money to a huge corporation. The ChapStick lady might have bees in her backyard, while Burt’s Bees ships its beeswax from Ethiopia.

Fortune magazine has a list of the “10 Green Giants,” an inventory of companies that go above and beyond what the law requires of them in terms of environmental sustainability. Some of these are unsurprising. Honda, for example, is green-friendly, but others, like SC Johnson (the makers of Windex and other cleaning products) and Continental Airlines come as more of a surprise. If these companies do more than the law requires, it says more about how little the law asks of them than it does of their attempt to save the environment.

When purchasing these products, it is easy to think that “organic” and “natural” are synonyms for “good” and “beneficial.” This is simply not true. Regulations for what makes something “organic” are fairly strict, but the label “natural” doesn’t mean anything. It may imply that there are no preservatives, but since there is no one to police this, so make sure to check the ingredient list.

Though I support good environmental policies, I think it is too easy to be lulled into a false sense of “do-gooding.” The product may really be organic, but it is still packaged in plastic, you have never been to the country where the products are produced and you will never meet the people who raised those bees.

[Reach columnist Sarah Greenleaf at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]