Greenwashing - What Does It Mean?
photo credit: BottleLeaf
Greenwashing is like “coloring” the exterior green and leaving the interior the same. It comes from the term “whitewash” that means to cover-up, combined with the trendy word “green”.
The term was invented by an environmentalist in 1986, and reffers to companies that are trying to take advantage of the trend, advertising for being green when they’re actually not.
Examples:
- tricking the customer into believing the product is green by using deceptive words: “100% natural” (when it’s a fact that there are many natural substances out there that are very harmful to humans).
- using deceptive ads that create the feeling of green, trying to fool the customer into associating their product with something beneficent, environmentally-friendly. Herbal Essences shampoos advertise for organic products, that in fact have lots of chemicals. General Motors take an SUV and place it in nature, where it “belongs”, and many more examples.
- Straight lying to the customers: producers of meat that has antibiotics and is genetically modified saying that it’s “natural and organic”, etc.
How is greenwashing possible? The government doesn’t have strict laws that regulate advertisement, and the big corporations bring big money to political campaigns.
Conclusion
It’s good to come familiar with this term, and learn how to tell the crooks and the liars. There’s a group called Earth Day Resources for Living Green that releases a report called “Don’t Be Fooled” every year, exposing the “greenwashers”.
Unfortunatelly, the average consumer like you and me doesn’t know much about greenwashing, and many companies would love things to stay that way. How can you tell from this sea of products, which ones are genuine or not? Most of them are not.
Simple things you can do: read the label, if it has any chemicals it’s obviously not natural, look for reports like the Earth Day one, read and inform yourself on the Internet, even take action by exposing scams like General Motors, Herbal Essences, Tyson Chicken, etc. Any action to spread the word can have a positive impact.
This is a blog about money, so “green living” is meant to save you money, living frugally and healthy. But green products can often be more expensive, and you might be thrilled by what the advertisment says, only to find out their promisses are not real. It’s always good to keep an eye out for cons.
I hope you’ve enjoyed! What do you think about greenwashing? Do you have a problem with all the deceiving ads?
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
Sponsored Links:
Recent Posts
Categories
Greenwashing - What Does It Mean?…
Greenwashing has become just as popular as “green”, although big companies are trying to cover it up. Don’t be fooled by their false promises and “green” look!…
I know what you are saying. I’m sick of “organic” this and “organic ” that. I have sensitive skin, and in searching for products that won’t irritate it, I am bombarded by products claiming to be 70% organic, 82% organic, etc. “No sulfates, no parabens”, they claim, but they still have other harmful chemicals. It’s time for someone to regulate the term organic more strictly. Maybe I’m being naive, but it seems to me that a product is either organic or it’s not, and there should be no gray areas.
Jennifer Robins last blog post..Picture This…
Jennifer, thank you for your comment!
You are so right, I feel the same when trying to shop for healthier products, it even happend to me to buy “organic” apples (the store had that on the price), and just see the same apples (same company) for cheaper at Walmart, with no “organic” sign next to the price. There’s definitely a gray area, the terms used, the false advertising, there are many things that need to be regulated and soon. For now, I think any product can have “natural”, “organic” etc. on it, without having to comply much.
I always expect everything said by advertisers to be a lie. Thats why whenever I buy anything I try to look for independent product reviews. You can’t trust anybody when money is involved.
Edwards last blog post..Overweight Nude is Overpriced
Edward, nice to see you back. I like the way you think, I wish more people would expose the scams some products really are.
For example, I always look at the list of ingredients for shampoos, and I’ve never used Herbal Essences, despite the publicity it got. It really has a lot of chemicals and there are other ones really “herbal”, that don’t get the publicity. I also think Pantene is a bad product despite the huge publicity, every time I’ve used it caused damage.
I found out what products work on my own, and usually aren’t those made by big companies that can afford to show them off on TV every 15 minutes.
Jennifer & Anca, just to clear some information up. There are three “levels” of products that can be classified organic by the USDA. The first 100% Organic, which as it explains will be composed of organically developed ingredients. The second Organic category must contain min 95-99% organic. The third is compositions ranging from 70-94%. Labels will read “Made with Organic Ingredients.” All three of these groups of products will carry the USDA Organic Label.
Now this is usually only on more commercial products, for getting the certification is a labor intensive process. Small local producing might not carry the label, but carry more quality products.
Also, the word organic I believe is not regulated in the US, only the seal. If this is true that would enable anyone to use the term.
-Jimi
There are growing methods better than organic.
Organic is just a cleaner method of producing, it may not always justify other practices used by the producer, involving the environment & health.
Ask your producer. Lets get this knowledge out there.
Jimis last blog post..Eating Local
Jimi, thank you so much for your input. Your site is a good place to learn how to eat and cook healthy, plus you offer us the knowledge for growing our own garden, I guess it doesn’t get more organic than that.
I found today USDA’s page, where it says that “The National Organic Program (NOP) develops, implements, and administers national production, handling, and labeling standards for organic agricultural products.”.
You can read more about the USDA and the NOP here: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/
It’s always good to educate yourself and be aware, your site Jimi is definitely a good resource!
I was aware of this. A lot of companies do this. But I didn’t know there was a term for it. Pretty cool.
Flimjos last blog post..Make Serious Money Online With TeamEarners
Flimjo, thanks for stopping by. Yeah, I have fairly recently found out about “greenwashing” too and I thought it was cool that people are catching this companies red-handed. I wish there was like a list that would get published on a popular blog of all the companies that do “greenwashing”. That would be a very long list…