Top 10 in Greenwashing

April 23, 2005 1:25 PM

Greenwashing is a term for "Disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image." The Green Life recently released their annual America's Ten Worst Greenwashers list. It's a good overview of companies and organizations that talk the talk but don't quite walk the walk. [via treehugger]
posted by mathowie (20 comments total)

What I wonder is, which BP executive's girlfriend bullied him into changing their logo and adopting that self-lacerating, "alternative energy sources" ad campaign? Only the dimmest bimbo on the planet could possibly believe that BP, or Ford, or Chevron, or ChemLawn, or any of these companies is desperate to put itself out of business. And while we in the general public are free to kid ourselves that there is such a thing as non-nuclear, alternative energy sources that could, alone or in concert, replace our oil-based economy without catastrophic costs to our prosperity, world and national order and way of life, oil company executives are in a better position than anyone on earth to know that there's no way out of this: It's oil or nothing. "Alternative energy" is about as realistic as "alternative medicine."
In any case, I'd like to see a nutrition-oriented top ten list like this -- of what I hereby dub the Top Ten "Wheat-washers" -- Food processors and fast-food purveyors whose advertising would have you believe that their products are nutritious...
posted by Faze at 1:57 PM on April 23, 2005

Faze - In talking with oil companies about their involvement in alternative energy research, their response has usually been along the lines of that they know there will be oil problems at some point - either in the form of decreased resources or increased demand for alternate fuels - and that they don't want to run themselves out of business in those scenarios (the first is certainly more likely). Just an interesting contrast there...

The Greenwashing article was great, though, and matched a lot of the ones that have bothered me and my professors. No surprise they're almost entirely energy and automobile companies...
posted by whatzit at 2:04 PM on April 23, 2005

At a store near you: ecofriendly lumber
posted by matteo at 2:07 PM on April 23, 2005

wow, this treehugger.com site sure has a good PR department.
posted by delmoi at 2:07 PM on April 23, 2005

Strange, I don't see The President of The United States of America on the list.
posted by randomstriker at 2:31 PM on April 23, 2005

This is a great article. I just leased a new GM vehicle (I got a vehicle with at least reasonable gas mileage) and need to send in my "customer satisfaction survey." I talked to the dealer about the possibility of getting an American hybrid in the next two years and he didn't sound too optimistic. I have been looking for ways that I can make it painfully clear to GM that if they don't clean up their act and start producing hybrid vehicles it will cut into their bottom line.
posted by kscottz at 2:34 PM on April 23, 2005

I just leased a new [gas-powered] GM vehicle... if they don't clean up their act and start producing hybrid vehicles it will cut into their bottom line.

There are hybrids available now and you chose to buy a traditionally-fuelled vehicle. Doesn't that prove that maybe it won't cut into GM's bottom line if consumers like yourself keep talking about hybrids but buying traditional vehicles?

I'm not saying that the invisible hand is all-knowing and all-seeing. And I do think there are lots of great reasons to own a hybrid, especially if you do lots of city driving (a friend own the Honda hybrid and loves it). Just pointing out the logical contradiction there.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 2:54 PM on April 23, 2005

I work down the hall from Geoff Johnson, the person who wrote the greenwashing report, and most everything else on The Green Life. If you like what he wrote, I'd encourage you to make a donation. (Even small ones will be much appreciated, and help in terms of getting other funders. He operates on a shoestring.)

It's nice to see this response after the pompous trashing the report got at gristmill.
posted by alms at 2:57 PM on April 23, 2005

I have to take issue with the inclusion of NEI, to wit:

[T]he NEI continues to call nuclear energy “clean” and “emissions-free.” In fact, because fossils fuels are typically required to run the mining and processing operations that transform uranium into fuel rods, nuclear energy over its lifecycle contributes 39.1 grams of greenhouse gas emissions per kilowatt hour.

Simple googling reveals that a *new* coal-fired plant releases on the order of 2 pounds of CO2 per KWh (various online sources cite this as a DOE estimate). That's about 900 grams, or over 20 times as much as nuclear. Also, note that 1) most operational coal plants aren't as clean as new ones, and 2) as far as I know, that doesn't include mining and processing emissions.

So by comparison, that seems pretty "clean" to me. Of course that's not "emissions free", but lots of companies use absolutist language about lots of things and I hardly think that this single claim merits placing NEI in the top ten list of greenspeak offenders. In fact, nuclear power is a very compelling alternative to fossil fuels in terms of emissions and even safety (if you balance the remote possibility of meltdown against the chronic certainty of disease caused by particulate waste), and any industry lobbying organization worth its salt would be hammering on this constantly. Of course there's always the problem of radioactive waste, and there needs to be some real dialog about coping with it.

I'm no nuclear shill; I would vastly prefer a switch to solar, wind, and geothermal. But nuclear is much more well developed and it seems nearly inevitable that it will play a significant role in the future of power generation if we are at peak oil and / or oil prices continue to rise. At least in a bridge role, until the renewables are ready for primetime. Eventually the environmental lobby is going to have to make nice with either nuclear or coal, if gas is really running out.
posted by rkent at 3:30 PM on April 23, 2005

(... and given the choice between nuclear and coal, nuclear is the better choice. Even if you just consider radiation release, a coal plant spews more radioactive dust into the air than a nuke plant is ever allowed to. </soapbox>)

I think their criticism of the NEI is valid, but I also think they're really having to stretch to include it, even in slot #6. Surely there are worse greenwashers than that to point out.
posted by hattifattener at 5:51 PM on April 23, 2005

This is one of my pet peeves... excellent post, Matt.
posted by BoringPostcards at 6:12 PM on April 23, 2005

At a store near you: ecofriendly lumber

And then there is farmed lumber. Being from part of the midwest where there really isn't farmed lumber, I didn't understand exactly what it was until I was visiting Washington state.

There, I got to see huge tracks of pine forest clear cut. Not quite virgin, but growing since the massive tree slaughter of the early 1900's. After clear cutting the old growth, these tracts of land were then re-planted with deciduous trees, completely changing the ecosystem.

But, because the trees were cut from land that was purchased for a "tree farm" suddenly those cut down became "farmed" even though they were not actually cultivated. Talk about a scam!
posted by [insert clever name here] at 6:33 PM on April 23, 2005

There are hybrids available now and you chose to buy a traditionally-fuelled vehicle.

To be fair, there are only a handful of models of hybrid vehicle on the market right now, and the American hybrid models are all trucks or SUVs. If you want to buy American but don't need such a vehicle, well, you're SOL. Some people have quite strong loyalty to American makes and it will take some time for the automakers to squander it. They're counting on this, in fact. In any case, one can hardly be blamed for not buying a hybrid with the choices so limited. There are other things one can do -- for example, moving closer to work, or carpooling -- in the meanwhile.
posted by kindall at 7:22 PM on April 23, 2005

If you want to buy American but don't need such a vehicle, well, you're SOL. Some people have quite strong loyalty to American makes and it will take some time for the automakers to squander it. They're counting on this, in fact.

So, you ended up doing exactly what the automakers have cubbyholed you into doing, and you expect them to change? Come on now, why should they? You're certainly not giving them a reason to do so.
posted by clevershark at 8:23 PM on April 23, 2005

How is purchasing GM, Ford, or Chrysler "purchasing American" any more than Toyota or Honda? Almost every Big 3 automobile is choc-a-bloc full of offshore-manufactured parts; and almost every Japanese car is assembled in North America.

I think there's likely negligble difference in overall economic benefit to North American citizens regardless which brand you purchase.

I have no hard numbers to back up this semi-intuitive guesstimate.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:51 PM on April 23, 2005

I've always been under the impression that when a big corporation puts out a marketing campaign to explain how good they are to the environment or how great they treat their workers and their community, it means they have something to hide and are using the PR machines to put out any fires. Or they lost a lawsuit and now have to build public reinforcement — Whatever keeps the shareholders and/or the general public happy.

After all, Cheveron *cares* about the environment! Wal-Mart *cares* about their low-wage workers! Who are we to think otherwise?
posted by Down10 at 1:00 AM on April 24, 2005

I have no hard numbers to back up this semi-intuitive guesstimate.

You can't fit a decal of Calvin pissing on a Ford logo on the back window of a Honda Insight. I know: I tried.
posted by Rothko at 12:26 PM on April 24, 2005

It's interesting to contrast this greenwashing list with Chris Mooney's ExxonMobil piece in MotherJones.
posted by claxton6 at 3:23 PM on April 24, 2005

Aw, crap. This ExxonMobil piece.
posted by claxton6 at 3:39 PM on April 24, 2005

For what it is worth I have family that work for the big three and I live near Detroit. I made the choice to buy this vehicle because I would like to support (well...sorta) the local economy. Furthermore even though many other manufacturers (e.g. Honda) manufacture their vehicles in America, many of those factories are in the non-union south. My point in writing to GM is that consumers who purchase vehicles can play an important role in the engineering process. It is customer feedback that drives many of the slight improvements in automobile manufacture and returning customer sales and brand loyalty make up a significant portion of the big three's bottom line. Hopefully if enough people were to take the time to do this it would cause GM to change its ways.
posted by kscottz at 4:14 PM on April 25, 2005