The Worst Greenwashing Offenders, Part 2

Sorry for the late post; it's been a hectic week! But, now I'll conclude the list of the Top 5 Worst Greenwashing Offenders, according to Web Ecoist and 24/7 Wall Street. And me, of course.

American Electric Power

Why They're An Offender: AEP doesn't advertise in the way that other offenders do, but it does talk out of both sides of its mouth. In 2008, they released a Sustainability Report, which offered discussion on their environmental performance and their strategies for becoming more sustainable. They adopted principles set forth by the Clinton Global Initiative, putting forth $100 million over five years to build and update their facilities to the standards of the LEED green building rating system. In case you're curious, LEED is an internationally-recognized third-party system of green building certification, which verifies that a building was constructed using strategies that improve sustainable performance in the areas of energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reductions, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts. AED also claims to have invested 2/3 of their $5.4 billion investment program to reduce airborne emissions and comply with federal environmental regulations.

However, AEP's motivation to become more environmentally-conscious doesn't necessarily stem from a natural desire for change, but rather an enormous number of regulation violations that have forced them in that direction. They were sued in 2005 by the Sierra Club and Public Citizen for thousands of violations at a power plant in Texas. Furthermore, in 2007, the Department of Justice, eight states, and 13 citizen groups created a settlement with AEP under the Clean Air Act, requiring caps on emissions of pollutants from 16 plants. AEP will have to spend more than $4.6 billion to achieve the caps and will reduce their pollution by 813,000 tons per year. The President of the Clean Air Watch reports that AEP is one of the nation's biggest polluters and is one of the biggest lobbyists against the political interest on global warming. In 2003, one week prior to a meeting between members of coal-burning facilities, the White House and the EPA, the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign received more than $10,000 from the AEP.

In a sense, American Electric Power has differentiated itself from other greenwashing offenders by making significant shifts in their policies. However, it is worth questioning whether they should be credited for those improvements. If they hadn't been found in violation of environmental standards, would they have become more sustainable?

I'll end the list with a company that's close to home. Cheers to greenwashing in our own backyards!

DOW Chemical

Why They're An Offender: Like BP and GM, DOW Chemical recently introduced an advertising campaign to create an image of a socially-conscious company. Dubbed "The Human Element", the campaign was released in 2006 and promised to change the future direction of the business toward changing the relationship between business, society, and the environment. One of their ads won a national advertising award in 2008. I couldn't find the specific ad, called The Bond Between Us All, but here's an example of the "Human Element" campaign:

Unfortunately, DOW Chemical has more than 100 years of pollution to counteract, and some of their recent actions have been inconsistent with their "new image". In 2001, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry received a petition that sought assessment of dioxin contamination in Midland, Michigan, especially in the Tittabawassee River. Dioxin has been linked with accelerated death in animals, liver damage in adults, carcinogenic effects, and developmental disturbances in babies. Michigan Department of Environmental Quality announced an Environmental Assessment Initiative in 2002, and by 2007, DOW Chemical had agreed to three EPA orders for sediment clean-up in the river. However, DOW has been extremely slow to respond to this issue. In 2008, they reported that they needed to measure the amount of pollution before they began the clean-up, and they also continued with sediment sampling in other areas, which later recorded high amounts of dioxin. Environmental groups and the EPA are frustrated with DOW Chemical's lack of progress. Additionally, DOW Chemical never took responsibility for or cleaned up after a poisonous gas industrial disaster in Bhopal, India, which killed 8,000 people within two weeks and an additional 8,000 due to gas-related diseases.

What's on the docket for next week? I'm thinking about looking at how greenwashing interacts with the fashion and auto industries, two topics that we've covered in class. But, for now, take a closer look at the marketing efforts of these five greenwashing offenders and see whether you notice a difference in how you perceive them.