GREEN BUSINESS BY DAVID ROBERTS
The reason why companies
greenwash their products
INCONVENIENT
TRUTH
YOU CANT SWING a dead hippie in a
big-box store these days without
hitting some sort of green boast on a
label. Partially recycled. Energy
efficient. Eco-friendly. Natural!
Off the top of your head, how many
of these claims do you suppose are
bogus or misleading in some way? A
quarter? One-half? Try 99.9%.
That's the startling conclusion of
research from TerraChoice Environmental Marketing. Of the 1,018 greenadvertised products it reviewed last
fall, all but one committed one of the
"six sins of greenwashing." Yikes.
That sounds like a call for tighter
standards and more legal enforcement—
perhaps some hefty fines, even a
boycott or two. Force companies to be
honest, right?
Sure. But there are deeper, less
comfortable issues in the background
of the greenwashing debate. While
there's certainly a role for better
oversight of green marketing, there
are built-in limits to green honesty in
a wealthy materialist culture.
More than half of the eco-labels on
today's products, according to TerraChoice's research, hype some narrow
eco-friendly quality (say, recycled
content) while omitting mention of
more significant environmental
drawbacks, such as manufacturing
intensity or travel costs. This is called
the "sin of the hidden trade-off."
Now, you might say it's not fair to
call that greenwashing. After all, how
many products today were not
manufactured in overseas factories
with lower labor and environmental
standards? How many were not
shipped long distances? Or wrapped in
excess packaging?
We're more familiar with these
trade-off traps elsewhere. Take health.
What constitutes a healthy lifestyle is
no great mystery: Exercise regularly
and eat right. As food journalist
Michael Pollan so pithily put it, "Eat
food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
That philosophy doesn't move a lot
of processed food. A bag of potato chips
may, in fact, be lower in sodium or
higher in fiber than the competition.
But let's face it: No bag of chips will ever
be healthy. A person committed to
living a healthy lifestyle generally won't
eat salty, deep-fried food. In that sense,
chips can't make health claims without
committing the sin of the hidden tradeoff. The same is true for the vast bulk of
the food products in the supermarket.
(I'm looking at you, Go-Gurt)
The challenge of green living is
similarly simple: Achieve the same
quality of life using less stuff and less
energy. A truly green consumer won't
buy 8,000 square feet of bamboo
flooring because the label said it had
been hand-rubbed by Nepalese
children for a fair wage; she'll dump
the McMansion and try to live in a
walkable area close to work. A green
business will not deploy teams of
researchers to figure out which 20%post-recycled-content copy paper to
use; it will offer free bus or subway
vouchers, start a carpooling program,
and let workers telecommute one day
a week. Being efficient on the big stuff
packs much more environmental
punch than the benefits that come
from choosing between competing
light-green product A and the kellygreen product B.
The uncomfortable fact for many
green marketers—and targets of that
marketing—is that genuinely going
green would mean giving up most of
the products and services that clutter
our consumer culture. It would mean
simplifying, valuing time and people
over stuff. How can most products
avoid the sin of the hidden trade-off?
With a simple label: "You don't really
need this."
Greenwashing isn't merely a result of
poor labeling standards and consumer
protection. It's part and parcel of an
economy built on trade in material and
energy waste. Until we are collectively
ready to really go green, greenwashing
will be with us. Naturally. 33
David Roberts also covers green for Grist
(grist.org, an online environmental magazine. >
Feedback: loop@fastcompany.com