Greenwashing all around us
May 5, 2009 by Jennifer Chait
Filed under Green Living
An nice piece was recently posted at Sustainable Business; a Greenwashing on the Rise report. It’s pretty much a must read if you’re interested in how greenwashers are getting more creative with their lame greenwashing efforts. According to the piece, “Between 2007 and 2009, the in-store availability of so-called ‘green’ products has increased between 40% and 176%, with 98% of products surveyed still committing at least one Sin of Greenwashing.” Not cool right?!
Why greenwashing matters to you:
First of all for anyone trying to go green, greenwashing immediately becomes an issues. Green products are already tricky to navigate, and greenwashing only makes it harder to choose the best green goods.
Greenwashing steals your hard earned cash. Why pay more for an item that you think is green, organic, or natural, only to find out later that you could have paid less for an item that’s totally comparable conventionally.
Greenwashing halts sales of actual green companies. There are plenty of companies out there who actually care about the environment and human rights related to production. Companies who greenwash, are only using green to gain business, not because they care about the issues. However, these greenwashing companies get business from uneducated consumers. AND by uneducated, I’m not totally blaming consumers. Companies who try to trick people make it confusing and it is hard to make smart consumer choices.
Learn more:
- Be a good green consumer
- Kids & Shopping – How Green Kids Can Be Smart Consumers
- As a parent, do you understand the impact of the need for stuff?
- Greenwashing Index: Watch and Comment on “Green” Ad
Do you find that greenwashing makes it harder to shop smart and green?
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Check out what others are saying about this post...[...] but really, it’s going to be impossible for eco-critics to buy this as anything more than greenwashing over larger issues. The McDonald’s corporate site notes, “We’ve been thinking and [...]
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