Green Watch: Greenwash

According to a survey from Global Market Insite, 42 percent of all Americans are willing to spend more for products made from socially and environmentally responsible companies. 

When corporations and companies see statistics like this, they see an opportunity to raise prices and profits by either becoming socially and environmentally responsible, or use advertising to imply that they are socially and environmentally responsible when they are not. So is the birth of greenwashing. As defined by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing Inc., greenwashing is:

 "the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service."

Yesterday at a meeting with a potential client, the point was raised that while the clients offered the most organic and natural product in their market, their competition was getting away with posting greenwash labels and assertions.

While frustrating to most in the environment sector, there are things that can help the average, casual environmentalist fend themselves from being washed with green fallacies.

Watch for Meaningless Symbols

We see them all the time.  Charming little symbols that promote a products "environmental" aspects.  Some of these little logos do carry some merit.  Others don't.  Like these:

This little doohickey might imply that the product is doing its part to save our quickly depleting ozone layer, but the fact is that CFC's (or chloroflurocarbons) have been legally banned for over 30 years.  

Did the Product Come from the Garden of Eden?

Many times advertisers will place their products in geological formations and environments to signify their environmental friendliness.  Just because a Hummer is placed in the Amazon Rain Forest does not mean it is forrest-friendly.

The Rhetoric of Washing Green

As a culture, a normal person will see more advertisements in a day than their grandfolks saw in their entire lifetime.  Because of this, many advertisers will attempt to get their target market involved and employ sneaky wording to imply that they are environmentally acceptable.  Take a look at this Fiji advertisement:

Fiji asserts in their advertisements that “every drop is green.” However, in just one year, Fiji uses 46 million gallons of fossil fuel, 1.3 billion gallons of water and 216 million pounds of greenhouse gases to deliver the bottled water to American destinations. Just because they donate a fraction of their goods to environmental agencies, does not mean that “every drop is green.”

These are just a handful of examples of some of the aspects of greenwashing in American ads.  For more information on the subject, Futerra Sustainability Communications has a great "Greenwash Guide" and Terra Choice has made their write up on greenwashing public here.

 

And by the way, do you know what is the antithesis of greenwashing?  This.