GREENWASH 101
DEFINITIONS
In 1999, "greenwash" entered
the official lexicon of the English language through
its inclusion in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary.
Oxford defines greenwash as: "Disinformation
disseminated by an organization so as to present an
environmentally responsible public image."
Companies are the most common greenwashers,
but other kinds of organizations, such as government
agencies and trade groups, also produce greenwash.
Greenwash serves several purposes, including
selling environmentally unfriendly products to environmentally
friendly consumers, building support for environmentally
damaging legislation among voters who want to protect
the environment, and convincing legislators and citizens
that industry doesn’t need government regulation
because it already has voluntary environmental policies
in place.
EXAMPLES
Greenwash comes in a
variety of strokes and shades. Here are illustrations
from its three major categories:
1.
Labeling: The "SFI Certified Participant"
label can be found on paper and wood products. SFI
stands for the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, a
program of the American Forest & Paper Association
(AFPA). In 1994, the AFPA, an industry group, launched
SFI to develop environmental standards for the products
made by the organization’s 132 member companies.
Yet the SFI standards are weak compared with other
sustainable paper and wood labels, notably the Forest
Stewardship Council’s "FSC Certified."
Many of SFI’s criteria are lenient and vague.
For instance, companies are required to use forest
chemicals such as herbicides only "prudently."
The reason for SFI’s modest demands lies with
the people who are enforcing them. The AFPA claims
that only 40 percent of the SFI’s board members
who control the certification process come from within
forestry industry, while the rest are from other backgrounds.
However, the AFPA doesn’t consider logging companies
and related trade associations to be within the fold
of the industry. If these companies are included,
as they should be, then at least 10 of the SFI board’s
14 members are forestry industry representatives,
creating a conflict of interest for the AFPA’s
supposedly independent labeling program. When companies
certify their own sustainability, that’s greenwash.
2.
Advertising: A glossy Shell ad in the June
2004 edition of National Geographic asks, "What
do we really need in today’s energy-hungry world?"
The answer, "More gardeners." The ad copy
describes Shell’s support of the Flower Garden
Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico,
site of "some of the most spectacular banks of
coral in this part of the world." Advertising
in National Geographic runs in the six-figure range.
Moreover, Shell has been running the same ad in National
Geographic and other publications, as well as on the
web, for years. That puts Shell’s marketing tab
for the ad into the millions, if not tens of millions,
of dollars. Shell cuts costs on this pricey environmental
program by limiting its actual funding for the sanctuary
to $5,000 per year. When companies spend more on marketing
their environmental programs than funding them, that’s
greenwash.
3.
Public Relations: Welcome to Houston Earth
Day 2004, sponsored by Marathon Oil. Back in 1997,
Marathon worked behind closed doors with Governor
George W. Bush to write voluntary emissions regulations
for industrial plants. The regulations successfully
protected out-of-date, dirty facilities from strict
pollution standards proposed in the Texas legislature
and supported by community groups and environmental
organizations. Marathon’s work helped condemn
Houston’s citizens to some of the worst air quality
in the country. When companies use Earth Day to play
host to people they poison, that’s greenwash.
HOW TO SPOT IT
1. Read between the
labels: While some environmental labels such
as "organic" and "Green Seal"
are backed by strict independent certification, many
labels on are unregulated and can be used entirely
at the discretion of the manufacturer. That doesn’t
mean that "non-toxic" laundry detergents
aren’t safe, but they don’t have to be.
Check out the Consumers Union’s Guide to Environmental
Labels at www.eco-labels.org
for information on over 125 commonly used labels.
You’ll find out which labels you can count on
and which you shouldn’t necessarily trust. The
website features comprehensive Report Cards arranged
by label and product category that you can print out
and carry with you to the store or download onto your
mobile device.
2. Use common sense.
When you see an oil company (BP) marketing itself
as "beyond petroleum" even though you fill
up regularly at its gas station down the street, you’ve
got yourself a greenwasher. Same goes for a timber
company (Weyerhauser) claiming to protect forests
by planting trees, or a biotech company (Monsanto)
publicizing its commitment to species conservation
despite promoting monoculture farming of genetically
modified crops.
3. Don’t be
fooled. The Green Life’s
Don’t Be Fooled report, released annually
on April Fool’s Day, profiles the ten worst greenwashers
of the past year. The report also features general
background and resources for further information about
greenwash.
4. Subscribe (it’s
free). Our Greenwasher
of the Month e-newsletter exposes the latest misleading
marketing and public relations campaigns. The e-newsletter
sign-up box is in the right column of this webpage.
HOW TO STOP IT
1.
Join the crew. The Green Life’s Cleaning
Crew is watchdog team of volunteers who identify
cases of greenwash and post them to our website. The
next time you spot a of that a, a picture of that
product or the text of that article, along with your
thoughts on it, and if you like, your picture too,
so that we can feature your watchdog work on our website
to let our visitors know which products and companies
are trying to fool them, and to show the companies
themselves that you see through their greenwash. You
can contact the Cleaning Crew at
crew@thegreenlife.org
.
2.
Purchase powerfully. Companies that produce
greenwash calculate that they can take more money
from the eco-conscious customers that they fool than
they spend on their misleading marketing and public
relations campaigns. You can tip their economic calculus
with your purchasing power as a consumer, by refusing
to buy from companies that you know are trying to
fool you. If enough consumers punish greenwashers
in this way, greenwash will incur more costs than
benefits.
3.
Talk back. Increase your purchasing power by
letting greenwashers know exactly why you’re
not buying their products. Few customers care to give
companies their comments, so yours will be noticed.
Tell a company you’re disappointed and offended
that it would try to sneak synthetic chemicals into
personal care products labeled "organic"
(Nature’s Gate), advertise its vision of a future
hydrogen economy before it sells even a single hybrid
car (GM), or sponsor Earth Day in a state where it
has sought environmental exemptions for its new stores
(Wal-Mart). Tell these companies that they are being
dishonest, even silly. And don’t stop with the
greenwashers. Confront their enablers. Let a supermarket
(Safeway) know you don’t appreciate it carrying
salmon labeled "organic" even though it’s
aware that there are no organic standards for fish.
Ask an environmentally-themed magazine (National Geographic)
why it solicits advertising from the world’s
worst environmental offenders. If you need to know
who to call or where to send a letter so that your
comments will make an impact, ask us at
greenwash@thegreenlife.org
.
HISTORY
c. 1970: The
public’s burgeoning environmental interest that
lays the groundwork for the highly effective inaugural
Earth Day on April 22, 1970, also provokes industry
into creating environmentally-themed advertisements.
Westinghouse, for example, runs ads describing nuclear
power as "neat, clean, safe." Former Madison
Avenue executive Jerry Mander’s 1972 article,
entitled "Ecopornography: One Year and Nearly
a Billion Dollars Later, Advertising Owns Ecology,"
documents how the oil, chemical, automobile and other
industries are co-opting environmental imagery and
messages through expensive marketing campaigns. While
the term "greenwash" has not yet come into
existence, the corporate phenomena it describes has
arrived for good, and will expand steadily until taking
off during the rapid popularization of environmental
issues in the 1980s.
1985: Chevron
launches "People Do," the longest-running,
most infamous greenwash campaign in history. The print
and television ads, which portray Chevron and its
employees saving endangered species and engaging in
other eco-friendly acts, are intended to green Chevron’s
image for a "hostile audience" of "societally
conscious" people. "People Do" does
its job. Chevron’s sales spike 10 percent among
consumers who see the ads, while a poll of Californians
in the late 1980s reveals that Chevron is the oil
company consumers trust most to protect the environment.
Undoubtedly, "People Do"’s sweeping
success inspires future greenwashers to make bold
green claims and leave consumers with the messy task
of verifying them. As environmentalist David Brower
comments, "People do. So do dogs. Then we have
to clean up after them."
1988: The
U.S. Chemical Manufacturers Association (USCMA; since
renamed quaintly as the American Chemistry Council)
adopts Responsible Care, a voluntary program highlighting
the environmental performance of the group’s
members. The toothless codes and "Guiding Principles"
of Responsible Care pioneer industry’s preferred
path towards self-regulation versus government regulation.
1990: According
to the trade publication O’Dwyer PR Services
Report, the environment will be "the life-and-death
PR battle of the 1990s." Greenwashers seize the
first major public relations opportunity of the decade,
Earth Day 1990, the environmental holiday’s 20th
anniversary. Monsanto, Texaco and British Petroleum
are among the incongruous sponsors of Earth Day events.
The consumer-oriented festivities of Earth Day 1990
come at a time when one of four new products hitting
the market in the U.S. are labeled "recyclable,"
"biodegradable," "compostable"
or "ozone friendly."
1991: A study
published in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing
finds that 58 percent of environmentally-themed ads
feature at least one deceptive or misleading claim.
1992: Negotiators
gather in Rio for the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development. The Earth Summit is billed
as "the last chance to save the Earth."
Corporations are at the center of the debate. The
U.N. has recently reported on multinationals’
large share of global greenhouse gas emissions, a
finding that – along with other recent realizations
about growing corporate power – led to widespread
support for international regulation of corporate
activity. Corporations are also on the periphery of
the debate, where they pressure decision makers to
back voluntary measures over enforceable standards.
In Rio, greenwash groups including the Global Climate
Coalition and Business Council for Sustainable Development
attempt with no small success to co-opt the mantle
of "sustainability" as their independent
crusade, promising to be helpful corporate citizens
without hindrance from top-down policies such as the
biodiversity and climate conventions and Agenda 21,
which the greenwash groups weaken through concerted
lobbying.
By this point, all companies and
trade groups from environmentally destructive industries
have come to recognize the supreme stakes of projecting
an environmentally responsible image to citizens and
legislators. Greenwash undergoes a rampant spread
throughout the commercial and government spheres.
1995: Greenwashers
debase Earth Day on its 25th anniversary, when the
organization Earth Day USA put what it called the
"official" Earth Day logo (though the Earth
Day name is in the public domain) up for sale to corporate
sponsors without bothering to screen out major environmental
offenders. Making matters worse, Earth Day USA hires
public relations firm Shandwick PR to coordinate the
major Earth Day celebration in Washington, DC. By
giving Shandwick its business, Earth Day USA essentially
rewards the firm for its effective greenwash campaigns
for clients including Ford Motor Company, Monsanto
and chemical company Ciba-Geigy.
1998: The
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) completes work on the
"Green Guides," a series of guidelines defining
common terms used in environmentally-themed marketing.
The FTC explains that the definitions are not themselves
legally enforceable, but establish administrative
guidelines for the FTC’s laws on overall marketing
claims.
1999: The
FTC finds that the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade
group, is guilty of falsely claiming that nuclear
power is "environmentally clean" and produces
electricity "without polluting." Yet the
FTC takes no action against the institute because
of concerns that the false claims may not fall under
its jurisdiction. The case underscores the ineffectiveness
of existing regulations on environmental marketing
and the need to develop clear, enforceable standards.
2000: BP goes
where no oil company has gone before, changing its
eminent name as part of a $200 million rebranding
exercise to position itself at the vanguard of environmental
reform within the energy industry. British Petroleum
formally shortens to BP, which becomes an acronym
for the company’s new slogan, "beyond petroleum."
Even the corporate financial press noticed BPs impudence,
with FORTUNE writer Cait Murphy quipping, "If
the world’s second-largest oil company is beyond
petroleum, then FORTUNE is beyond words."
Despite facing criticism and mockery from the left
and the right, BP sticks with its new slogan, which
also comes with a feel-good sunburst logo to replace
the austere green shield of British Petroleum. BPs
stubborn audacity shows the resilience, if not invulnerability,
of well-financed greenwash. The company drowned out
the voices of activists, editorialists and the like
with an onslaught of print and television ads, with
billboards in Manhattan to boot. The ads focus narrowly
on BP’s renewable energy initiatives while hardly
mentioning its dominant oil operations.
2002: Representatives
of the Greenwash Academy, a coalition comprised of
environmental and social justice groups CorpWatch,
Friends of the Earth International and groundWork,
hold the Greenwash Academy Awards ceremony during
the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg,
South Africa. The awards honor companies for greenwash
productions that are just as fictitious and often
more expensive than Hollywood films. Winners include
BP for Best Greenwash, ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond
for Best Director and Shell for Lifetime Achievement.
The United States is awarded Best Supporting Government
for representing corporate interests in environmental
treaty negotiations.
2003: Republican
consultant Frank Luntz’s confidential memo proposing
the party’s greenwash strategy is leaked to the
press. The memo warns Republican politicians that
they have "lost the communications battle"
over the environment and encourages them to gain control
by seizing "a window of opportunity to challenge
the science" on global warming. He recommends
hollow but evocative buzzwords for politicians when
talking about environmental issues, including "safer,
cleaner, healthier" and "a fair balance
between the environment and economy." According
to Luntz, "A compelling strategy, even if factually
inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than
a dry recitation of the truth."
home
> take greenwash to the
cleaners > greenwash 101
|
