Carla Christine Taljaard RFS 710 Environmental Potential

Date 30 March 2012

G R E E N WA S H I N G A S A P H E N O M E N O N
INTRODUCTION This essay will examine tendencies among service and product providers to market themselves as being environmentally responsible, without actually taking steps in following such promises through. Growing environmental concern among consumers is a reassuring fact, but it can become detrimental to the environment if uninformed consumers choose and support corporations that are not as environmentally conscious as they appear. It will also investigate the counter-actions by watchdog groups to expose greenwashing practices, and how effective these strategies has been in forcing dirty corporations to change their unsustainable ways. PROBLEM STATEMENT Environmental concern has become fashionable. Karliner refers to polls done in 1989 indicating that 77% of american consumers based their product choice on the environmental reputation of a company. (Karliner 2001) In order to gain the approval and support of the environmentally conscious, marketing strategies had to become more appealing in an environmental way to gain support from this emerging market. Unfortunately many corporations only focus on creating an image of ecological responsibility. This is accomplished with complicated advertising strategies as well as partnerships with non-prot environmental movements, but without substantial change in actual policies or practices. Mander found that in 1969 alone, public utilities spent more than $300 million on advertising. This was eight times more than what they were spending on the research they were touting in their ads. He further goes on to say that these processes were destroying the word ecology and all understanding of the concept. (Mander p.47 cited in Karliner 2001) As William Laufer correctly points out: The very rms that wash their reputation through public relations, complex front coalitions, sponsored think tanks and who publicly lead the ght against global warming, nuclear waste and water pollution, remain some of the worst corporate offenders. (Laufer p.257) This essay will examine some of these rms, the type of claims and advertisements they make, and the affect this has on consumers and the environment. DEFINITION Greenwashing is a complex marketing strategy that abuses the environmental concerns of naive consumers in order to appeal to a growing market. Before the term greenwashing was generally accepted in the 1990s, it was known as Ecopornography, a term formulated by Jerry Mander, an advertising executive in his article: Ecopornography: One Year and Nearly a Billion Dollars Later, Advertising Owns Ecology which appeared in Communication and Arts Magazine in 1972. (Devauld & Green 2010) Mander explained that Ecopornography was the systemic attempt by a corporation to dissuade (consumers) of the severity of the ecological crisis and their involvement in it (Eco-Pornography 2010) According to Robert Lamb, the term greenwashing was derived from the term whitewashing which is deceptive or specious words or actions intended to conceal defects or to gloss over failings (Lamb 2008). The term greenwashing rst appeared in a critical essay about the hotel industry and its abuse of the green movements popularity by environmentalist Jay Westerveld in 1986 (Hayward 2009, cited in Devauld & Green 2010) In1990 it was taken up in the English Oxford Concise Dictionary and is now dened as disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image. (1999) CorpWatch expanded this denition to: The phenomenon of socially and environmentally destructive corporations attempting to preserve and expand their markets by posing as friends of the environment and leaders in the struggle to eradicate poverty. Or any attempt to brainwash consumers or policy makers into believing polluting mega-corporations are the key to environmentally sound sustainable development. (CorpWatch 2001)

HOW GREENWASHING WORKS According to William Laufer, dirty companies shift the focus and attention away from the rm, create confusion, undermine credibility, criticize alternatives and deceptively posture rm objections, commitments and accomplishments. (Laufer 2003 p.257) He then elaborates on this theory and divides this deception into three categories: confusion, fronting and posturing. Confusion is easily created by virtue of the complex corporate form as well as the complexity of environmental issues. Fronting is the representation of council, ethics ofcers and committees, while posturing tries to convince internal and external customers and stakeholders of the organizations collective commitment to ethics. (Beder 1997, cited in Laufer p.257) By abusing the above complexities, polluting corporations are successful in convincing consumers that they are leaders in the ght for the environment. Few consumers questions the validity of these claims, and even if they turn out to be false, do not know what can be done about it. The Seven Sins of Greenwashing In 2007 Terrachoice Environmental Marketing Inc. conducted its rst survey of the validity of environmental claims made on products available in six box-stores. Based on the ndings, six patterns of greenwashing was established, and subsequently called the Six Sins of Greenwashing. (Terrachoice 2007) In 2009, the survey established a seventh sin. (Terrachoice 2009) The sins are: Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off: These claims are usually not false, but suggests a product is green based on solely one or a very narrow set of attribute(s), without reference to other important environmental issues. An example is paper companies that promote recycled content with no reference to to manufacturing impacts like air and water emissions. Sin of No Proof: Claims that cannot be substantiated by easily accessible supporting information or third party certication. Examples include facial tissues that claim post-consumer recycled content without any evidence. Sin of Irrelevance: Environmental claims that are truthful, but unimportant and unhelpful thereby distracting the consumer from the real environmental issue at hand. i.e. promoting products as CFC-free. This is irrelevant, as CFC has been banned and no products may contain it. (One can not promote abiding by the law as an environmental advantage.) Sin of Lesser of two Evils: Agreen qualier that may be true, are placed on a product of which the entire category is of questionable environmental value. For example organic tobacco or green pesticides. Sin of Vagueness: Claims that are so poorly dened or broad that the meaning is likely to be misunderstood by the consumer. These claims include wording such as Chemical-free, Non-toxic, Environmentally friendly or All natural Sin of Fibbing: Claims that are untrue. They include misrepresentation of certication i.e. Certied Organic shampoo, where there is no proof of such certication or a caulking product that claims to be Energy Star registered, but no record of this exists on the website. Sin of Worshipping false labels: This sin only emerged in the 2009 survey. Products that claims some sort of certication without there being any. Figure 1 is a graph from the Terrachoice 2010 family brochure, and indicates which of these offenses were mostly committed, and how greenwashing tendencies changed from 2007 and 2010.

TerrachoiceThe occurence of greenwashing sins from 2007 to 2010. www.sinsofgreenwashing.org

Although these ndings are based on products available in stores, if is a good indication of statements that are generally effective in promoting any kind of service or product that are actually guilty of environmentally irresponsible actions. It also proves that consumers are easily fooled by empty environmental words such as natural or non-toxic. It may also suggest that consumers do not want to feel guilty about their purchases or choices, but also do not want to make too big an effort to investigate the validity of claims, and are satised with such claims. The same patterns are also seen in the marketing campaigns of big polluters like Shell and BP. These companies employ the very same tactics as the producers of smaller goods like facial tissues to promote themselves as being environmentally conscious while they are actually responsible for major pollution. The tactics just becomes more specialized and complex, with enormous amounts of money invested in keeping the companys image green. A classic example of a greenwashing advertisement is the Shell dont throw anything away campaign. Shells 1998 Prots and Principles booklet invited serious critique for some of its statements, including Its all part of out commitment to sustainable development. Deeper into the booklet one nds what Kenny Bruno calls a nugget of truth: ...a sustainable oil company is a contradiction in terms. The booklet has since been updated to remove the phrase. (Bruno 2002, p11) Shell advertisements make use of classic public relation tactics, like using deceptive language and images and avoiding the real issues. These tactics claim to be environmentally conscious and hold its stakeholders wishes as a priority, often claiming to place this responsibility in the same sphere as its bottom line. (Devauld p3.) The following is an excerpt from Shells Business Principles, that was published in 1978. (Devauld & Green 2010) ...we commit to contribute to sustainable development. This requires balancing short and long term interests, integrating economic, environmental and social considerations into business decision-making. (p.3) According to Bakir 2006, this language shows the company as noncommittal, consisting of empty promises and reliance on greenwash language like balancing, environmental considerations and sustainable development. (Bakir 2006 cited in Devauld & Green 2010) The text in the right corner reads: If only we had a magic bin that we could throw stuff in and make it disappear forever. What we can do is nd creative ways to recycle. Greenhouses use our waste CO2 to grow owers. And our waste sulphur to make super-strong concrete. Real energy solutions for the real world. According to Friends of the Earth, the advertisement appeared in Sunday Times, Financial Times, and the New Scientist. (Friends of the Earth 2007 cited in Devauld & Green 2010) In their critical essay of the advertisement Chris Devauld and Lelia Green highlights the the offset of the smokestacks in the image, making the most important part of the advertisement the owers and the recycling. (Devauld & Green 2010). The psychedelic owers draw on the hippy culture and by using images similar to mainstream advertising Shell is playing environmentalists culture back to them, reenvisioning its own impact on the natural environment. (Turner cited in Devauld & Green 2010)

Figure 2: (2007) Shell: Dont throw anything away advertisement campaign. Image found on Aitana Leret Garcias blog EOi http://www.eoi.es/ blogs/aitanaleret/2011/12/16/dp2-cradle-to-cradle-waste-food/

Using Terrachoices Seven Sins of Greenwashing as a guide, we can see that the above advertisement is guilty of six of the seven sins of greenwashing, with the exception of the seventh, which is worshipping of false labels and claiming invalid certication. Shell is only one of many oil companies accused of Greenwash. In 1992, Kenny Bruno published a book called The Greenpeace book of Greenwash. The book made in-depth accusations against companies including Mitsubishi, Solvay and General Motors of using greenwashing techniques to gain a larger market. (Bruno 1992) Another online non-prot organization called CorpWatch, gather bimonthly to award its Greenwash Awards. Awards has gone to BP, Holcim, ExxonMobil, Nestle and to Shell for the campaign discussed above. (CorpWatch 2010) These companies will be discussed later. GREENWASHING IN ARCHITECTURE In architecture, terms like green building or sustainable architecture lacks a clear denition and can be easily manipulated to sell a product or service if it hinges on publicity. (Ho 2003 p31). Journalists are also guilty and can give some claims a lot of gravity, without verifying their validity. Another obstacle in the way of truly sustainable architecture is so-called back-slap, where architects apply green features after the initial design in order to earn LEED or green-star points. (p31) Although Ho acknowledges the value of a rating tool like Green Star or LEED, she criticizes its checklist mentality that can reduce the complexity of sustainable architecture to buzzwords like efcient, solar, healthy, passive, reused and recycled. She insists that this mentality is greenwashings prime instrument, and good designs main obstacle The use of the buzzword-approach is illustrated by an allegation of Nadav Malin, the creator of GreenSpec about the Commerzbank in Frankfurt by Foster and Partners. I tried to gure out the buildings energy use per square meter, but Ive never seen any data about the building published anywhere (Malin cited in Ho 2003) Verity Bird (2010) goes even further and advocates that wind-turbines, solar panels and heat pumps can also qualify as greenwashing if it is not embedded into a holistic consideration of the complete design. She calls the applications of these systems post-design an eco-veneer. Arguably, these post-applied systems might be a facade, but if they are implemented in the correct way, they can still contribute to a building that has lower energy and less pollution. The systems

are not the implied greenwash, but the attitude and marketing of such a building as then being sustainable, may constitute to greenwash. This means that the building will still be sustainable but not necessarily good architecture, or good sustainable architecture. The Antilla family residence in Mumbai is an example of such architectural greenwash: All four walls of the 27-story building is covered in foliage, with a rooftop garden and a hanging garden. The clients are Reliance Industries Ltd, a petrochemical corporation and the biggest provider of polyester bre. (Rich 2007) The business tycoon Mukesh Ambani and his family will occupy 3251.5 square meters of the top stories. According to Ralph Johnson of Perkins + Will, the rm responsible for the design, the building would have a band of vertical and horizontal gardens that demarcates the towers different program elements...the outer walls on certain levels will be sheltered by trellises supporting panels that contain hydroponically grown plants, claiming that these vertical gardens will help shade the building and and reduce the urban heat island effect. Johnson later elaborated on the total green area and how it related to a tree, Its a prototype for buildings of the future. (Mathews and Murdock 2007)

Figure 3: Rich, S (2007) Completed Antilla Towers. Perkins + Will. image found in Green Tower in Mumbai Figure 4 & 5: Matthews & Murdoch (2007) Antilla Residence. Perkins + Will. Image from article Perkins + Will Debunks Antilla Myths

According to Sarah Rich in her Article Perkins + Wills Antilla Green Tower in Mumbai, there is nothing sustainable about the building in terms of materials or construction. It is a 26-story building with nine elevators, a theatre room, yoga and dance studios, an ice room, theatre and ballroom. It houses a single family of 6, but employs a staff of 600. (biggesthouseintheworld). When the architects were confronted with some questions about green claims, it mentioned no other green features beside the literal green (Rich 2007) If sustainable architecture claims to be energy conscious or green without relevant proof, it is greenwashing, and subjects the entire industry to the effects of greenwashing. Fitting a building with green imagery as Ho suggests, further aggravates the problem. Greenwashing is keeping the bar low- not just for sustainable architects, bur for architecture in general. Those who claim to do green things without having proven it create unrealistic expectations about what actually can be done within a certain time frame and budget. (Ho 2003)

DISSEMINATE Two conditions must be fullled for greenwashing to be effective (i.e. the consumer is impressed by the corporations environmental claims and convinced that he/she can safely choose said product): the rst is an uninformed consumer who is concerned of the environmental impact of their decision. (This concern may or may not be pure.) The second is a corporation that have practices and policies they wish to hide. The third is a marketing strategy that makes use of enough green imagery and language as well as vague environmental claims in order to appear to be a leader in environmental issues. As mentioned,Watchdog environmental groups like CorpWatch, Friends of The Earth and Greenpeace act as whistleblowers, campaigning against greenwashing corporations, as well as political decisions that have inuence on the environment. The unfortunate fact is that big companies can afford to spend a great deal more on advertisement than environmental groups can spend on the education of the public. Polluting companies also employ so-called Astroturf campaigns, a grassroots program that involves the instant manufacturing of public support for a point of view in which either uninformed activists are recruited or means of deception are used to recruit them (Beder in Donahue 2004) This means that big corporations then seem to support environmentalist groups in their purpose, but are actually just buying their silence

and goodwill. Examples of this is abound when one starts investigating where environmentalist groups funding come from, or which companies sponsor environmental conferences. In her essay How Clean Are Green Ads: Evaluating Environmental Advertising in Contemporary Media , Shannon Donahue argues that the public may nd it difcult to distinguish between the agendas of corporations or environmentalist groups as the campaigns and programs of greenwashing companies attempt to mirror those of ecological groups to garner public support and appeal to expanding green-conscious audiences. (p.24) Environmental (and often non-prot) organizations tend to become aggressive or political in their attempts to expose corporate greenwashing. This is illustrated in the Heritage Forests campaigns protecting forests in the USA. These advertisements accuse the Bush administration of environmental harm. (2004 p.23) Donahue contends that to the casual reader, both the Heritage Forrest Campaigns ad and Shells astroturf seek support for environmental conservation. However it would be difcult for the same reader to evaluate the advertisements deceptive messages. (2004 p24)

Figure 6-9: Heritage Forest Campaign 2010.

OPINION Very few products available to the consumer of the 21st century can be described as benecial to the environment. Even crops grown in ones own garden may be from unsustainable or modied seeds and treated with pesticides. This places service and product providers in a very difcult position, as their environmental efforts may never be good enough. Marketing a product to be wonderful, when it is actually mediocre, has also been practiced even before consumers became environmentally conscious. Dirty corporations unfortunately do not even attempt to change policy or practice, but only brand themselves as being responsible. If a corporation is spending more on its green campaigns, than what it is spending on the facts it is claiming in these ads, it constitutes as blatant greenwashing. These practices undermine the public and get away with it because of their nancial hold on policymakers and media. The only way to force dirty companies to even remotely improve their attitude, is for the consumer to actively become involved in its own education and to make better informed decisions. Initiatives like the Terraforce Seven Sins, are a step in the right direction to educate the public, and to make them aware of possible greenwashing traps. More pressure needs to be applied by vigilante consumers. Of equal importance is action from government policymakers in the funding of a non-prot, non-political organization, that are not dependent on outside funding, and which cannot be bribed by greenwashing companies. Such and independent board can then objectively judge the claims made by marketing campaigns as well as government decisions. CONCLUSION This essay examined greenwashing in the modern environment as well as the effects it has on the trust of the consumer and more importantly, the environment. It is clear that greenwashing is complex problem to solve, as it involves many stakeholders: big corporations, politicians, advertising agents environmental groups and consumers.

Of these groups, the easiest and most direct way of inuencing the direction of greenwashings future, is the attitude and actions of the consumer. For the consumer to make informed decisions, non-prot, a-political groups must strive to educate and inform consumers, so that dirty corporations can start cleaning up their act, instead of their image.

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