Corporate responsibility—the notion that companies should include the public interest in all their decision-making—has never been so popular. Nor has it so often proved so phony.
The evidence is all around us:
*In 2008, General Motors rolls out a TV campaign for its Chevrolet Volt, promising that the plug-in hybrid would get up to forty miles “without a drop of gas.” Only the fine print captured the Volt’s true distinctiveness: “Not yet available for sale.”
Two years later, the Volt is still not available for sale. GM ran real ads and spent real money to promote a nonexistent product, hoping that its phantom Volt would give it a pristine green sheen.
*The Clorox Company paints itself with an earth-friendly luster by launching the GreenWorks line of natural cleaners. And yet, in 2009, the bleach-maker runs a series of ads for its chemically amped cleaner, Formula 409, boasting that it could have developed an even brawnier product, “but it would be illegal in twelve states.”
Perhaps Clorox’s true color is not quite as earth-toned as it would like us to believe.
*In 2005, General Electric launched “Ecomagination,” an ambitious effort to develop clean technologies that deliver a sustainability improvement of at least 10 percent. Three years later, GE quietly joined with Caterpillar and Alcoa to bolster an industry trade group in its fight against mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases.
In their race to embrace a sustainable ethos, GE, GM, Clorox, and many others have emitted that heat-trapping gas called hypocrisy. They are not alone.