I was first introduced to the term "greenwashing" at the 2007 Step It Up Rally in Arlington while talking to Wendy Rieger of The Green Room blog about Vanity Fair's Green Issue."Do you think they really care about the environment," Wendy asked, "or is it just another example of greenwashing -- companies pretending to be green to move product?"
It's a terribly hard question to answer. Are companies just doing the best they can? If so, can you blame them?
I faced that dilemma last month when Yahoo launched Green.Yahoo.com. I got emails from several friends and even Yahoo itself asking me to help spread the word.
But the greenwashing question nagged at me.
Maybe it was the Ford ads displayed prominently on the page. Not one. Two. In fact, every page on the site has a Ford ad on it.
Granted, the ads were touting the Ford Escape Hybrid SUV. But the Ford Escape averages around 33 miles per gallon -- the same as my 1999 Saturn SL2 sedan, which isn't even a hybrid. (The failure of U.S. automakers to develop fuel-efficient vehicles deserves its own post another day, but we'll stick to greenwashing here.) The site also launched with a contest to give away Ford Escape Hybrid SUV taxis.
The Yahoo Green site links to the Yahoo Autos Top 100 Green Cars page. The rankings somehow have the 2007 Volkswagen New Beetle, which gets an appalling 23 miles per gallon city, as the #25 most green car with no additional explanation.
The more I looked at the site, touting compact fluorescent light bulbs, composting, and other very nice things, I started to wonder ... where was talk about carbon emissions?
Nowhere on the site can I find any mention of the need to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050 to limit the effects of global warming.
There's no mention of the Yahoo Green page anywhere on Yahoo's front page.
The more I looked at the site, the more I wondered. Was it designed to promote environmentalism? Or to sell Ford Hybrid SUVs?
The bottom line -- buying green involves the same principles as any other kind of smart shopping. Don't take claims at face value. Ask tough questions. Do your research.
Got a suggestion for Genuine or Greenwashing? Let me know!
4 comments:
It's a tough issue. I agree. On one hand you're happy to see any environmental movement - on the other, it's often only about the bottom line, and sometimes that blurs the line between what is really green and what is just trying to be to sell more.
"The Yahoo Green site links to the Yahoo Autos Top 100 Green Cars page. The rankings somehow have the 2007 Volkswagen New Beetle, which gets an appalling 23 miles per gallon city, as the #25 most green car with no additional explanation.
The more I looked at the site, touting compact fluorescent light bulbs, composting, and other very nice things, I started to wonder ... where was talk about carbon emissions?"
Am I alone in thinking that this single-minded focus on global warming is bad for the environmental movement both short-term but particularly long-term?
Yahoo explains their Green Rating here: http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center-article_144/ . It was developed in consultation with Environmental Defense, an organization that I believe most environmentalists would trust. Besides just measuring the carbon emissions of a vehicle it also looks at Fine particles (particulate matter, PM), Nitrogen oxides (NOx), Hydrocarbons (HC), and Carbon monoxide (CO). I personally am more concerned about car's environmental destruction due to local air pollution, road construction and facilitation of sprawl (that high mileage vehicles encourage) than I am about global warming. I therefore think Yahoo's Green Rating is a better indicator of a car's environmental impact (since it measures its impact on local air pollution) than simply just looking at its fuel efficiency.
I agree though that they are pushing the sales of cars too much. Maybe they should try to get some Bike companies to put some prominent ads on these pages. Perhaps Yahoo could give them a reduced CPM rate?
Yup, Greenwashing is here and it's a problem. What greenwashing really does that bothers me is the way it encourages people to buy more goods that will eventually clog landfills. The principal tenant in the whole reduce/re-use/recycle thing is REDUCE, but this being America, people aren't particularly down with that idea.
Also, did you hear about the new credit card that GE is sponsoring? Rather than giving users airline miles or cash-back rewards for spending a certain amount, they're instead getting carbon offsets. So...people are encouraged to buy and consume products that may or may not have been bad for the environment in their production, but it's all good because they buy some carbon offsets to make up for it.
excuse the long-winded rant.
The conservatives who comment here don't apologize for their long-winded rants, so you shouldn't either! :)
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