All Your Green Blog

Greenwashing is a relatively new term. When I first heard it, I thought "oh my gosh, am I being dishonest in my attempts to cultivate a green brand?" I read blog posts by those I respect that said things like "the lesser of two evils doesn't count as green." Article after article was full of angst over what "green" meant, and who qualified. It dawned on me that the best environmental case is one with no people, so anything we did would be the "lesser of two evils."

Well, it turns out the term is both narrower than I originally thought, and filled with even more scorn. For a great example of companies who engage in "greenwashing", checkout this post on portfolio.com or this whole category on www.earthfirst.com. These are some of the largest single polluters in the country, and often the world. Companies like Ford and GM are constantly trying to "greenwash" their brand, claiming slight increases in fuel mileages to be vast, world-changing contributions to the environment. It's a whole different world than whether I drove to the grocery store or not, as I first feared.

Now, I do own a car, and I do use more electricity than I produce. I'm no angel, but at least I'm making real improvements in my environmental footprint, and I'm trying to empower others to do the same. These guys... well, they're not. You can see some of my previous posts for examples, in addition to the links in this post. I highly recommend www.earthfirst.com, by the way. They're hilarious, and a great daily resource for eco-rants and laughs.

Basically, greenwashing is something that you'll see a lot of, once you're aware of it. You'll see billboards, television commercials, and a lot of other expensive advertising campaigns by huge companies trying to change their public image. There are two ways to combat this dishonest strategy. First, don't give them more money than you absolutely have to (power companies, for example, take time to escape from entirely). The most powerful tool you have, however, is skepticism. If you don't buy what they're feeding you, they might actually have to do something to change their public image. In the meantime, I'll keep saving for a permanent solution to my longer-than-a-bike-ride transportation needs.