Green washing is the practice of companies falsely misleading their consumers in to thinking that their products and policies are environmentally sound.
“The term is a portmanteau of “whitewashing” in the sense of covering up misdeeds, and “green”, a common term used to refer to environmentally sounds practices.” (Smith, 2009)
“Green washing is a marketing strategy” (J& H Hoffman, 2009) which paints a misleading picture of environmental friendliness. Such techniques include stating that there packaging is biodegradable or recyclable when its not or simply using a colour scheme and glossy ads to suggest a green company, this results in the companies looking reputable and responsible. (Smith, 2009) This therefore makes it hard for consumers to distinguish between genuine and green wash companies, as there is no easy way to prove that the company actually practices what it preaches and isn't just using 'green' as a slogan. (Greenpeace, n.d.)
Image of literal greenwashing.
History
“Green washing took root in the 1970s when the growth of the environmental movement brought awareness of ecological damage to the general public.” (Greenpeace, n.d.)
Due to the Bhopal, Chernobyl and Exxon Valdez disasters in 1980 the environmental movement strengthened and green wash advertisements increased.
On the 20th anniversary of Earth day 1990, millions joined together to protest the degradation of the planet and corporations were forced to realise the level to which consumers took environmental concerns when making purchases. This caused green washing in advertising to peek and companies began making misleading claims about their products to capitalise on consumers desires for green products. (Doyle, 1990) Companies would claim that there products were “biodegradable”, “recyclable”, “compostable” or “ozone-friendly” (Durning, 1993) when in fact there actions were resulting in them being among the biggest polluters.
Consumers then began to become confused by authenticity of “green” products and a number of attempts were made to stop green washing.
In a blog in 2004 Abhor states that on November 1990, one of the first steps to ban green washing was made, by a group force of ten state attorney generals who released the “The Green Report”. This report reviewed the controversies around the meanings of the words “degradable”, “recyclable” and “recycled”. The Green Report established a need for federal standards to guide environmental advertising and recommended specific standards to incorporate into legislation regarding the validity of environmental claims.
The Green report resulted in other attempts to ban green wash, Sen Frank Lautenberg
of New Jersey sponsored a bill called the Environmental Marketing Claims Act in the 1991-2 congressional session. This failed to make it through congress and therefore the rules didn't come it to place.
In the 1990s California passed labelling statues for strict legal definitions for words like “recycled”. Complaints were made as companies from the Association of National Advertisers thought it prevented free speech. They lost the case and the federal court upheld the statue in 1995.
The Federal Trade Commission issued a set of guidelines in 1992 named the “Green guides” they worked on refining the guide and this was completed in 1998. Although the claims are not legally enforceable the Federal Trade Commission will contact a company when it fails to adhere to these guidelines. Once this action has been made the Federal Trade Commission allows the company to continue displaying its products on the shelves for months before the company diminishes its current misleading packaging.
Greenpeace have been working on this issue since the 1990s and in 1992 released the Greenpeace book of Greenwash highlighting the worst cases of green wash at that time. (Greenpeace, n.d.)
Current guidelines on the issues of green washing are far less strict and many companies such as the oil industry continue to make false claims about their policies as they have the finances to carry effective greenwash out.
Although the first steps have been made to eradicate this problem companies are still getting away with it.
Greenwash & design
Designers are constantly thinking of ways to be green, from the design process to the final product and so to “ keep up with the Joneses” companies will either follow suit or at least appear to follow suit with the help of green wash.
Green wash plays an important role in design, as being seen to have designed something environmentally friendly gives a company a better reputation and makes them appear more caring to the public eye.
Green wash is also important in the advertising process of a company as companies will use many techniques to design a campaign which portrays their company as environmentally friendly.
In 2001 Jonathan Glancey wrote an article on Gordon Brown and his new “eco towns”. He stated that Gordon Brown had proposed to make 5 new 'eco towns' around England, which would consist of 100,000 carbon neutral homes, that, in theory, seem to tick all the self-congratulatory "green" boxes but within these “eco towns” there would be no job opportunity's just homes, so the habitants would have to commute to work increasing the number of cars on the road and therefore the amount of pollution.
Further out from the city these towns will not solve the problem of ever more sprawl, ever more commuting and ever more driving to supermarkets.
Chevron an oil based company from california is turning an old oil refinery into an 8 acre field of solar panels making them appear green but in fact the company is using the energy from these solar panels to fuel its Texaco filling stations in Britain. Chevron is one of the biggest greenhouse-gas emitters in California but with a cleverly designed promotional video all the consumer sees is the energy saving solar panels and not what these solar panels are actually being used to power. (Pearce, 2010)
Chevron's field of solar panels.
Brothers Mart and Rob Drake-Knight are currently campaigning to make marketing as green as the sustainable products it promotes. (Charlesworth, 2010) Rob Drake-Knight told Businessgreen.com
“We feel that supply and demand should be allowed to work naturally, but the current trend of green marketing is making it difficult for consumers to work out what is a truly sustainable product and what is greenwash,”
There solution is to mix user-generated content with honest communication and user design. Rapanui has built a wiki style application which allows consumers to get a better insight into the scientific details behind the products and ask further questions in open dialogue with the company. As a result the company sales have increased by 1,000 percent and won them the 2010 Sustainable Business Award. (Charlesworth, 2010)
Bibliography
Abhor, T (2004) History of Corporate Greenwashing and Top Ten Offenders of 2003. dialogic.blogspot.com, [blog] 19 February Available at
Charlesworth, A (2001) Fashion Brand declares war on Green wash. [online] Available at
Doyle, J (n.d) A brief History of Green wash. [online] Available at
Glancey, J 2007 Brown's “eco towns” are a green wash. Guardian [online] 15 May. Available at:
Greenwash (n.d.)Introduction to stop Greenwash.org. [online] Available at:
Hoffman, J. Hoffman, M (2009) What is green washing? Available at:
[Accessed 19 September]
Karliner, J (2001) A brief History of Green wash. [online] Available at
Pearce, F 2010 Chevron's solar panels won't clean up its filthy oil field. Guardian [online] 8 April. Available
Smith, S, E (2010) what is green washing? [online] Available at
