Cynicism aside, how effective and forthright have these efforts been? Coined “greenwashing” the advertising phenomenon has spread through all levels and forms of business and politics.
Greenwashingidex.com states that greenwashing is when “a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be ‘green’ through advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact.”
Many car companies, Chevron, and a number of water bottle companies have projected, ”the unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue by creating a pro-environmental image, to sell a product or policy…” says Sourcewatch.org.
These institutions have expressed their earnest intentions to work toward sustainability, but they are profiting off the public’s innocence, ignorance, or genuine interest in protecting the environment by scamming their customers or followers. False advertising has been illegal since the early 1900s, and the business ethics of these companies need to be confronted.
Top Selling Cars of Company that Promotes “Sustainability”
The Greenwashing Index rates ads and determines the severity of the greenwashing. Chevy pursues the greenwashing effect with a webpage that says “gas-friendly to gas free” making the consumer link the color and meaning behind "green" with the name and logo of "Chevy". An ad like this is purely "feel good" with no reality.
According to Forbes.com the best selling vehicles of 2007 had the Chevy Silverado at number two following with the Impala at number seven. The Silverado has an estimated 18 miles per gallon while the Impala has 20 miles per gallon.
The 2007 top sellers are nowhere near Chevy’s most fuel efficient, the Cobalt, at 37 miles per gallon, therefore the advertisements and homepage of Chevy associated with being “green” are not representational of the products sold.
Chevy’s website describes how its most innovative sustainable vehicle is run on hydrogen fuel cells which use zero gasoline and do not produce any emissions but water vapor. The possible reduction of petroleum for cars is on the horizon, but the Equinox Fuel Cell vehicles “aren’t available to purchase”. Despite the advertisements, the products are not even for public use, which defeats the purpose of such “green” campaigns.
Green Campaigns with Not So Green Practices
Chevron has the same propagandistic ads where images of people’s thoughtful faces ask the public if they, too, will join Chevron in their crusade to fight the unsustainable. Ironically, the legal case of Aguinda v. ChevronTexaco cancels out their green initiative when it was made public that the company dumped billions of gallons of toxic wastewater into Ecuador’s rainforest. (Amazon Watch)
The international campaign, Chevrontoxico, discusses how the spills threaten the survival of five indigenous groups, desecrate the groundwater, and create what might be the worst oil-related disaster on the planet; Texaco’s years of dumping in Ecuador resulted in 30 times more oil split than Exxon Valdez.
Obviously Chevron is worried about their image, yet they spend millions of dollars on “going green” campaigns in order to entice the environmentally concerned customers instead of putting that money toward cleaning up the messes they have created.
The newsroom of Chevrontoxico reported that from 1970 to 1992 Chevron dumped 18.5 billion gallons of toxic waste into unlined pits, swamps, streams, and rivers, defiling the rainforest inhabitants’ homes in Ecuador. Such negligence leads to a community without clean drinking water, an issue contributing a huge population of environmental refugees.
Responsible for the “Rainforest Chernobyl”, two-faced Chevron’s green campaign holds no power over customers aware of their environmental atrocities, but for the customers who fall into their advertisement ploys, Chevron still holds customers captive.
Greenwashed Water
But surprisingly this greenwashing effect has infiltrated into even our most daily accouterments: bottled water. Many companies like Arrowhead and Poland Springs have converted the geometry of their bottles to being “eco-shaped”.
Greenwashing Index testifies that Nestle’s Ice Mountain water bottles are 100% recyclable and made with 30% less plastic than the average bottle. But plastic plantations are using the same amount of energy and resources to create these bottles, and still spew pollutants into the air. Transportation of the products factors into the energy and pollutants espoused. Despite the shape, the “eco-bottle” is no different from the traditional.
Fiji water.com claims to be green as well, but how environmentally friendly is a company when its water is from an aquifer in “a virgin ecosystem at the edge of a primitive rainforest, a continent away from the nearest industrialized civilizations”?
Unique to green campaigns, Fiji water dedicates their environmental efforts to the analysis of their “carbon footprint”, and gives detailed information on the life cycle of their products on their website. Providing solutions to the inevitable waste that water bottles produce, Fiji water supports container deposit laws because, “Consumers in states with container deposit laws recycle 2.6 times more containers than their counterparts in other states.”
Food and Water Watch states that bottled water is not safer than tap water, and it is thousands of times more expensive than tap water. Dasani, bottled by the Coca-Cola Company, is purified tap water “enhanced with minerals for a pure, fresh taste”. The most “green” way of getting your water is right through the faucet because governments have water-regulating policies. If so inclined invest in a Brita filter just to make sure your tap is up to standards.
Of course companies who make an effort at being environmentally sustainable should be commended, but there is a huge discrepancy on how a company accounts for its “greenness”. The public and even the government hold responsibility to weed through advertisements and see if they reflect their sustainability. Greenwashing sells products and rallies the public to invest, but does not indicate the verity of a company’s sustainability.
