Greenwash

May 15, 2008 – 12:11 pm

What is Greenwash? 

It’s the whitewashing that companies do to make themselves look greener and more environmentally friendly than they are.  The Consise Oxford English Dictionary defines it as ‘Disinformation disseminated by an organisation to present an environmentally responsible public image.’

Greenwash is a bad thing.  It’s leading to a lot of confusion for a lot of people about how green something really is, and this in turn is making people think that making an effort to try and be greener isn’t worthwhile when it is.  I suppose with companies being pressurised to be greener, it’s not really surprising that they’re trying to make themselves seem as green as possible even when they’re not. 

There is however a good bit of news in all this.  Advertising watchdogs in the UK and in the USA are scrutinising companies like they’ve never been scrutinised before, and they’re clamping down hard on those companies that are making bogus environmental claims.  According to the Advertising Standards Authority, there has been a significant increase in complaints about greenwashing.  If you come across a company which is making environmental claims that aren’t true, you can report them to this agency and they will look into it.

Carbon offsetting is one thing that’s been facing steadily growing critiscism as it seems to provide a ‘get out of jail free card’ to industries and recently the ASA ruled against British Gas, saying that it couldn’t call one of it’s tariffs which offsets emissions ‘zero carbon’.  The reasoning behind this is that gas will always produce carbon emissions when used.  Offsetting is not in itself a completely bad idea, but when companies say they’ll offset against the emissions created by your flying to another country, or the first x number of miles worth of emissions created when you drive your new car, in order to get you to travel with them, then it’s not really going to count for much if the car they’ve produced is a gas guzzler, or the type of plane used is creating worse emissions than another company.  The trick for offsetting of this nature on a personal level is to make sure that you buy the car or take the flight that creates the LOWEST emissions possible in the first place, and then if you want to, you can offset as well, by donating to a reforestation charity or similar.  Don’t rely on the company to do it for you - chances are, you’re being brainwashed by greenwashing if you do.

Another form of greenwashing to look out for, are companies who say that they are greener than their competitors - whilst what they’re saying can be true enough, it doesn’t necessarily make them ‘green’.  For example, if company a says that they’ve made their product more concentrated, so that it uses less energy to transport it around the country than company b’s similar product, then that might well be technically correct, but if both companies are producing a product that’s chemically made, and if company a is importing the chemicals from abroad while company b sources them locally then there are many many more factors to consider than just how much energy is used to transport the item AFTER it’s been created.

It seems that most of us don’t think businesses are being honest about their green credentials.  In fact, a recent surveys showed that a mere 3% of consumers felt that businesses were being honest about this. with over 30% thinking that they activaly exaggerate their greenness.

Perhaps it’s time for the companies to put their money where their mouths are, and instead of trying to sell us the consumer lifestyle they need to be trying to sell us the sustainable lifestyle instead.