“Green-wash (green'wash', -wôsh') – verb: the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.”
http://www.terrachoice.com/
The article from the NYT in the url link below summarizes a recent report that makes for interesting reading for anyone interested in the extent to which firms are willing to jump on the CSR bandwagon and mislead consumers in the hope of financial gain (Issues: Advertising, p151; Brands, p153):
“Not everything called ''green'' is going to do much for the environment, according to a report issued this week by a marketing firm, TerraChoice Environmental Marketing (terrachoice.com). Titled ''The Six Sins of Greenwashing,'' the report is based on a study of 1,018 consumer products that make environmental claims. Of those, according to the report, ''all but one made claims that are demonstrably false or that risk misleading intended audiences.''”
The report’s “six sins” include the Sin of the Hidden Trade-off, the Sin of No Proof, the Sin of Vagueness, the Sin of Irrelevance, the Sin of Fibbing, and Sin of the Lesser of Two Evils that, taken together, indicate:
“… both that the individual consumer has been misled and that the potential environmental benefit of his or her purchase has been squandered.”
The full report and definitions of each of the six sins can be accessed at:
http://www.terrachoice.com/Home/Six%20Sins%20of%20Greenwashing
Take care
Dave
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther
Being Skeptical of Green
By DAN MITCHELL
663 words
24 November 2007
The New York Times
Late Edition - Final
5
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/technology/24online.html
