Greenwashing - how susceptible are you?
Wikipedia defines “greenwashing” as “a term that is used to describe the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.”
Also, companies that attempt to portray an aura of environmentalism and concern for green issues without actually changing business practices are saddled with the term “green sheen“.
I know a lot of people these days are tired of the whole “green” movement, bemoaning treehuggers and hippies as pariahs that shovel Toyota Priuses down people’s throats and force them to recycle or pay extra for grocery bags at the till. I personally think there’s a growing backlash to companies in all industries that attempt to promote themselves as environmentally friendly, whether they are or not. (I chuckle to myself every time I see a dumpster collection truck drive past my window at work, ‘Rainbow Waste’ emblazoned on the side, with ‘The environments (sic) choice’ underneath - I’d love to know how they are environmental in the slightest!)
Right now it is very cool to be green. The fact that the (anti-immigrant, basically racist) British National Party, of all people, are using the green argument as a reason to keep out immigrants (they say “our countryside is vanishing beneath a tidal wave of concrete” as a result of house-building for immigrants) is all the evidence needed there.
On the plus side of this greenwashing, loads of companies have started up or expanded into the ‘green’ industry, and this gets the eco-attitude out to more people in the long run. In my view, better to have it be a funky trend than not be around at all. I remember the Woodsy the Owl adverts from way back when, so that kind of thing sticks in your mind (sometimes), so hopefully a couple of generations down the line regular people will be ‘kinder to the planet’ than we are right now.
For more reading about greenwashing, including how to easily spot it, check out these links:
How To Spot Greenwash
Beware of Greenwashing: Not All Environmental Claims are Meaningful
As another example of the amount of greenwashing there is in the marketplace, just look at the “organic” cosmetics market. According to Mercola.com, many labels that call themself organic (like Jason, Giovanni, Nature’s Gate and Kiss My Face, some of the biggest organic cosmetic labels out there) use definitely NOT organic chemicals (such as 1,4-Dioxane) in pretty much all of their products; this is one reason I almost exclusively use Dr. Bronner’s organic soap for hair washing and showering. Dr. Bronner’s use recycled plastic containers that are themselves recyclable, soy ink printing on the bottles and fully organic ingredients in the soaps and moisturizers they make. Burt’s Bees, some Alba products, Avalon and Teressentials are some of the brands that also don’t have this Dioxane chemical, according to this study by the Organic Consumers Association.
The shortcut for things like cosmetics and food is don’t put anything on or in your body that you can’t pronounce, of course, but in the long run you should be wary of any company that is suddenly ’super green’ or ‘eco-friendly’. A leopard doesn’t change its spots overnight.
August 13th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
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