Is Joel Makower right?
No, he’s wrong. Greenwashing is bad and it’s getting worse.
First, let me provide some context. In a column for GreenBiz.com, Joel, a frequent commentator on green business issues, asks, “What, exactly, is a ‘socially and environmentally destructive’ corporation? Is that nomenclature reserved for the worst of the worst, or do most big companies qualify?”
While Joel doesn’t actually answer his own question, I will. To varying degrees, all corporations are environmentally destructive, and most are probably socially destructive as well. On a net basis, virtually every company (Seventh Generation included) takes more from the earth than it returns, and as a result the planet is worse off. Nothing complicated about that.
Are all companies socially destructive? This, I’ll admit, is a much more complex question. But why ask it if you don’t have any thoughts on an answer?
But to the matter at hand: how bad is greenwashing? Joel argues that greenwashing scouts, “have left many companies confused and conflicted, unwilling to talk about what they’re doing right, however imperfect, for fear that such communications will brand them with the G-word. As a result, many companies I’ve talked to have clammed up, keeping their green initiatives largely to themselves…” Sorry, I don’t have any sympathy for companies that can’t handle criticism. Is Joel beginning to sound like a corporate apologist?
Joel continues, “Put it all together and it’s not the travesty some would make it out to be. The rise of environmental marketing claims indicates that companies are engaged as never before — perhaps not sufficiently, but engaged.” He continues, “So, is greenwashing — ‘disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image’ — on the rampage? I think not.”
Oh really? Greenwashing might not be on a “rampage,” but it certainly is surging. To cite just a few examples:
- General Motors is advertising a plug-in hybrid, the Chevrolet Volt, which it doesn’t even sell. At a time when fuel-sucking SUVs have helped drive the US auto industry into a ditch, GM apparently hopes that its phantom Volt will give it a pristine green sheen.
- Procter & Gamble’s Tide Pure Essentials Detergents, with their earth-tone packaging and “naturally inspired scents,” turn Tide into a green wanna-be. Consumers believe they’re doing the right thing for their families and the environment by choosing Pure Essentials. But according to P&G’s Material Safety Data Sheets, Tide Pure Essentials products are identical to conventional Tide!
- Sunshine Makers’ Simple Green plays a similar game. Its key ingredients comprise the same toxic solvent that can be found in traditional all-purpose cleaners such as Formula 409 and Windex.
- Then there’s General Electric, Caterpillar, and Alcoa, which last year were widely hailed when they joined four environmental groups to endorse sweeping cuts in heat-trapping emissions. Problem was, behind the scenes, the three companies supported the efforts of an industry trade group to fight mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases, according to BusinessWeek. Sounds to me like the three giants are blatant emitters of the heat-trapping gas called hypocrisy.
Need other examples? Check out Greenpeace’s stopgreenwash.org, which billboards dozens of green pretenders. Greenwashing is worse than “bad,” because it runs the dangerous risk of breeding consumer cynicism toward companies that are genuinely trying to do good. That’s one of the reasons why Seventh Generation is partnering with Greenpeace for Change It ’08, which features a greenwashing curriculum and is educating the next generation of environmental activists.
Make no mistake: no company, including Seventh Generation, has attained the ultimate goal of fully embedding sustainability into all of its business activities. Given that every organization is to some degree imperfect, it’s vital that companies are transparent about their environmental shortcomings as well as their successes. Only then can they begin to develop strategies for mitigating their negative impacts on society and the planet. But if a company is unwilling to acknowledge its failings—and certainly if it assumes a green guise that it hasn’t earned—it should be reproached. The stakes are too high to just let greenwashing slide.
I don’t know whether the glaring bright lights of these corporate disinformation campaigns have blinded Joel, and I don’t hold Joel’s consulting gig with Clorox against him. But could it be clouding his judgment?