Making responsible consumer choices are a crucial element in creating a sustainable world.  But responsible consumer choices are not easily achieved when one considers what the consumer is up against.

Green labeling – labels which mark a product as environmentally friendly, such as Greenguard, Green Seal, Energy Star, or Green Label Plus – has offered the consumer assistance in making responsible choices.  But although the introduction of eco-labeling has represented a step in the right direction, many corporations have used green marketing tactics as a ploy to market products with little or no verification of the data being reported.

“Marketers have learned that green is gold and have bent over backwards to tout the greenness of their products – and that has contributed to confusion about which environmental claims are actually true,” writes Greg Zimmerman, executive editor of facilitiesnet.com, a company dedicated to the advancement of energy efficient and environmentally friendly construction materials and designs.  In his article, The Rise and Significance of Eco-Labels and Green Product Certifications, Zimmerman describes how these practices can be simple, inadvertent “little green lies,” such as adding the phrase “environmentally friendly” to a product’s marketing while the product has not been changed at all, to outright untruths for the purpose of catching unsuspecting buyers off guard.

This marketing practice is known as greenwashing. Comparable to whitewashing, greenwashing can be defined as a coordinated attempt to hide undesirable facts in an environmental rather that political context.

Enviromedia, a marketing company which strives to make corporate social responsibility a norm in business practices, describes greenwashing as a company or organization which spends more time and money claiming to be green through advertizing and marketing than it does engaging in business practices that actually minimize their environmental impact: “It’s whitewashing, but with a green brush.”  For instance, an energy company that runs advertising touting its use of “green” technologies, but the “green” technology in question is still in the testing and development phase or represents only a small portion of the company’s overall activities.

Here is an example:

In 2008, General Motors newspaper ads in the UK claimed that the H3 was a fuel efficient vehicle. However, the Hummer H3 is one of the least fuel efficient vehicles on the market. The ad claimed that the vehicle has “Half the calories. All the flavour" and that it was “Built for UK roads, it's smaller, fuel efficient...”

In addition to these problems, certain government agencies charged with overseeing the validity of green marketing and advertising have been largely ineffective.  In June of this year, USA TODAY reported that even as “green” marketing claims have increased exponentially, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the agency that is supposed to crack down on products which are marketed with false environmental claims, has taken almost no enforcement action over the last decade.  Yet, companies who publicize eco-friendly products or biodegradable packaging are supposed to abide by guidelines issued by the FTC in 1992.  The FTC is supposed to take action against companies that ignore the Green Guides, but USA TODAY reported that since May 2000, legal action has been taken against only three companies for violating the guidelines.  Complaints were announced against the three companies on June 9^th, the day of a congressional hearing about environmental marketing.

The FTC generally filed two or more complaints a year from 1992 to 2000, but enforcement dropped dramatically under the Bush administration.  A 2008 survey by the environmental consulting firm TerraChoice found that in 12 large U.S. stores more than 1,700 products claimed to possess green credentials; these products included everything from liquor to sport-utility vehicles to pesticides.

The dangers of allowing greenwashing practices to go unrestrained are clearly defined by Chris Macdonald, Ph.D., a professor of business and professional ethics at Saint Mary’s University, on his website Businessethics.ca.

First, greenwashing is purposefully misleading in order to make the consumer believe that a company with an awful environmental history actually has a great track record.  “Not all environmental advertising is dishonest, of course,” Macdonald writes, “But any advertising labeled as “greenwashing” is dishonest, and that’s a problem.”

Second, greenwashing could potentially result in consumers and regulators becoming complacent. If one corporation in a particular industry were allowed to get away with greenwashing, then other corporations in that industry will find it necessary to follow suit in order to remain competitive.   Were this to happen, it would create an industry-wide illusion of environmental sustainability, rather than sustainability itself.  “This creation of the illusion of environmental sustainability,” Macdonald continues, “could have dire social consequences as consumers will continue to use products and support companies that further environmental degradation and reduce the equality of living conditions for future generations.”

Third, it is easy to see how greenwashing could also provoke cynicism in consumers if they come to expect self-congratulatory ads from even the most environmentally backward corporations.  In other words, allowing greenwashing practices to go unchecked would cause consumers to be skeptical of sincere portrayals of legitimate corporate environmental successes.

To find help in making responsible consumer choices and protect yourself against misinformation, TerraChoice has since set up a site, Sins of Greenwashing.

Images Courtesy of Creative Commons

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