Every few weeks, social media networks get swamped with news of big-league corporations taking sustainability initiatives or millionaires donating sizable sums to organizations dedicated to protecting the environment. It can be anyone from fashion giants like Lacoste, who started a limited-supply line and donated the profits to endangered animal preservation funds, to companies like Amazon, who boast green shipping options and entire workforces dedicated to sustainability research. “Boast” is a very apt choice of words here, because no matter how drastic those measures might seem, they are a marketing strategy, and the key to every good marketing strategy is great optics.

What is greenwashing?

The name of this strategy is greenwashing, and much like its sibling marketing strategy, pinkwashing, it’s an attempt to entice a corporation’s consumer base with ambiguous proof that they care for the same causes. According to Investopedia, “greenwashing is the process of providing misleading information about how a company’s products are more environmentally sound”. This is a rudimentary form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and at the same time a way to capitalize on the growing demand for green products and services.

And it works! A study by Nielsen reveals that 66% of global consumers were willing to pay more for sustainable products in 2015. With more and more corporations hitching a ride on the growing sustainability trends, it’s almost a given that these numbers have, and will continue to rise.

What are some examples of greenwashing?

According to entrepreneurship news site FEEDOUGH, there are five basic greenwashing techniques. Those include:

1. Environmental imagery on packaging, ads, etc.

2. Misleading labels such as “100% organic” or “Certified”. Those are most often self-declared and not based on existing sustainability protocols.

3. Hidden trade-offs. This one is crucial to understanding how a greenwashing scheme works. Some brands can afford to produce green products only because their methods of production are exploitative; that means production is cheaper, which balances out the extra expenses for sustainability.

4. Misleading claims. Much like mislabeling, this marketing technique presents the product in question as superior because it lacks certain chemicals or other materials. These substances might often be illegal to use, and as such the company’s claim to better quality is irrelevant.

5. Presenting a product as the “lesser of two evils”. In the context of greenwashing, this technique involves claiming a product is sustainable while another, greater risk is present. 

So many brands have been accused of greenwashing that it is next to impossible to keep track on your own. Fortunately, there are multiple resources you can consult before making an informed choice, some of which will be covered later on in this article. Here are some industries that heavily practice greenwashing:

1. Airlines. In a 2008 ad, EasyJet claimed that “an EasyJet plane emitted 22% less CO2 than another plane on the same route.” This was swiftly debunked by the Advertising Standards Agency, which accused the airline of misrepresenting the fact that their airplanes can carry more passengers, and as such have a lower ratio of fuel used per person on board. This is a stellar example of misleading claims.

2. The food industry, and especially the meat and dairy industries. Factory farms have a tremendous environmental footprint and are considered some of the primary contributors to what is called the sixth mass extinction as concluded by the IPBES’s Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. At the same time, food and drink brands market their products as wholesome or organic in an attempt to distract consumers from the issues they cause.

3. Software. IT companies have caught onto the fact that green sells, and often time the release of minor power-saving features so that consumers are pushed to buy new hardware. 

What is unfortunate is that the year is 2020, and we’re all still buying it. The circle of greenwashing goes somewhat like this: a corporate giant implements a half-baked sustainability strategy; they pay good money to have it posted all over our social media feeds; and then it’s up to the residents of the web to circulate the news, adorning them with congratulatory clapping emojis and skewed eco-activist jargon in the process.

Greenwashing is complicated, and there is often little to no information available. However, there are free resources you can use to make responsible decisions as a consumer. Those, along with some significant counterarguments, will be discussed in the next part of this article, so stay tuned!

Click here to read Part Two.