Focusing My Project, and A Little History!

Coming back from spring break in California (a very enjoyable, but non-sustainable vacation), I initially read Dick's email absentmindedly. Sure, I'd give an update in class on Wednesday regarding the progress of my project. It had made progress, right? Then, I gave it a bit more thought. Up until this point, my scope has been pretty broad. How could I narrow my focus to create the ultimate final project? Based on the direction I've taken thus far, I've decided to spend the rest of my project doing deeper research into greenwashing. This is mainly what I had decided to do before, but now I'm dropping the element of my project where I discuss how consuming less is greener than green consumption. So, the outline for the rest of the semester is as follows: I'd like to spend a couple of posts delving into the history of greenwashing and specific campaigns against it, notably Greenpeace and Greenwashers Consulting. I've come across a list of the top 10 greenwashers, which may be an interesting overview of the worst greenwashing sins. I'll look into specific topics that we've discussed in class, such as the fashion and auto industries, that may have fallen prey to greenwashing. Using the seven sins of greenwashing, I will find "green" products in stores and investigate how truthful their claims are. And, in order to save the semester from being a total downer, I'll end by looking into products and initiatives that mostly avoid the trappings of green marketing and have made a positive impact on the planet. Sound like a plan?

So far, I've given an overview of what greenwashing is and how it's done. Don't remember exactly what greenwashing is? I'll tell you! Greenwashing is the use of marketing techniques to mislead a consumer into believing that a company's products or practices are environmentally-friendly or greener than they actually are. Today's consumer is conscious of where their product comes from, how it is made, and how it will affect the world. Therefore, companies will market their products based on the needs of that consumer, even if their product isn't particularly sustainable. I've thought for a while that greenwashing is a relatively recent phenomenon sparked by the increased interest in global warming and environmental sustainability. But, after doing a little bit of background research, I found out that green marketing has existed in some form for almost fifty years. Let's take a look back at how greenwashing has evolved. Thanks to The Green Life (http://tinyurl.com/4qf7pvw) and Corp Watch (http://tinyurl.com/2vxsvr) for their timelines on greenwashing. 

Though the term "greenwashing" wasn't coined until the mid 80s, its ideas began in the 1960s with the beginnings of the contemporary environmental movement. Media of all sorts began carrying images of "green" corporations, a phenomenon labeled by advertising executive Jerry Mander as "ecopornography." Growing interest in the environment led to the first annual Earth Day on April 22, 1970.


Environmentalism exploded in the 1980s. In 1985, Chevron launched "People Do", regarded as the longest-running and most infamous greenwashing campaign in history. The ads featured Chevron employees saving animals and engaging in other environmentally-friendly acts. The ads cause a spike in sales and consumers polled several years later stated that they trusted Chevron over other oil companies to help the environment. Here's an example of one of their ads:

One year later, in 1986, the term "greenwashing" was coined by New York environmentalist Jay Westerveld in an essay regarding the hotel industry's practice of placing cards in each room to encourage the reuse of towels to "save the environment". He claimed that the hotels were implementing very few actual efforts to help the environment and were using such cards mainly as a way to increase their profit margin (washing less towels=spending less money). (http://tinyurl.com/4rqtysp)

The U.S. Chemical Manufacturer's Association created a voluntary program called Responsible Care in 1988, which highlighted the environmental performance of the group's members. This began a trend of environmental self-regulation, rather than governmental regulation.

By the 1990s, greenwashing had established itself as a method to convince consumers of a company's environmentally-friendly practices. Consumers were increasingly taking into account a company's environmental reputation when purchasing their products. A study conducted by the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing in 1991 determined that 58% of environment-themed ads had at least one deceptive or misleading claim. In an effort to control greenwashing, the Federal Trade Commission created the "Green Guides" in 1998, which gave guidelines on terms used in environmental marketing. However, they could not enforce any of the guidelines because greenwashing was outside of their jurisdiction. The term "greenwashing" officially became a part of the English language in 1999.

The early 2000s were marked by a significant effort from BP to rebrand itself as a green company. Spending 200 million dollars, BP changed their slogan to "Beyond Petroleum" and created a green and yellow sunburst logo. Other oil companies, such as ExxonMobil, and the US Government were "honored" in 2002 at the Greenwash Academy Awards, a mock award ceremony hosted by the Greenwashing Academy during the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

And today? Well, today's greenwashing efforts are numerous and growing rapidly. We'll see more of them in the future, as well as some efforts to fight misleading marketing.