U. S. and British observers have said that buying ecologically friendly products is big business and, for many, a big guessing game, subject to debate and subterfuge.

USA Today reported on Thursday that researchers at Mintel International Group said products that billed as green or environmentally friendly was a $722 billion business in 2009, up 41 percent from five years earlier.

Author Rona Berg, considered an expert on eco-friendly options in personal care products, said, "Green-washing is rampant."

Green-washing refers to marketing a product as green, when it really isn't.

Business professor and marketing expert Ed Stafford at Utah State University said, "The concept of green is still evolving. Even environmentalists conflict with one another about what is truly a green product."

Mintel further added that the debates in board rooms and in the proximity of a cash register have lead to 40 percent of consumers indicating in a survey that they do not know how to tell if a product is green or not.

Berg said, "It's really kind of the Wild West out there." (With Inputs from Agencies)