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Over the course of time, humanity has chosen to label many things with color, a way of categorizing and organizing the world through our eyes. White has always symbolized purity, and the chance for a clean slate. Green has become the embodiment of the earth, and a symbol of mankind’ s desire to keep it that way. With the palette of color describing a plethora of life, has come the words that wash those colors clean. As whitewashing has been used to describe the masking of the ills of governments and corporations through a white veil, greenwashing has risen as the moniker of choice to label the abuse of the green movement. Greenwashing is the corporate manipulation of minutiae or PR spin to make certain actions appear to have a benefit the environment. A 2007 report by TerraChoice estimated that of the 2219 consumer products labeled green, 98% were guilty of some abuse of greenwashing*.

How is all this greenwashing possible? The main reason is that Federal Trade Commission does not have an explicit definition of “green.” If I label my products green, how can they not be? I say they are green and who are you to say they are not, or more specifically who is going to regulate it? At the moment the FTC is working on a plan to begin regulation of corporations claiming to have green initiatives, but in the meantime we can all be green filling our 4 ton SUV with gasoline to drive alone to the local coffeshop and buy supposed shade grown coffee.

The greenwashing movement has become so prolific that Greenpeace has established a website entitled www.stopgreenwash.org. In fact many more websites have begun popping up as well to track the abuse like www.greenwashingindex.com, where users actually help track and rate products and services as to their level of greenness. Corpwatch.org actually gives out a greenwashing award to those corporations who spend more money on ad and PR campaigns then on actually being green.

This marketing quagmire is vaguely reminiscent of the organic label on food products, which still suffer from more spin than anything else. I propose that we as consumers demand more from our products than merely crossing our fingers and hoping that an overburdened government agency can enforce a non-descript criteria. And we certainly can’t allow these industries to self-regulate, as that phrase seems to be an oxymoron. Consumers need to get educated and do what we do best, vote with our wallets for change.

*http://www.terrachoice.com/files/MacLeans%20Magazine%20-%20October%207%202007%20-%20The%20Eco-Sell.pdf

By: David