The Spin Cycle: Greenwashing Must Stop

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." George Orwell

Back around 2000, BP jumped on the green bandwagon by rebranding itself as an eco-friendly oil company. Spending roughly 200 million dollars, BP bought themselves a new tag line, a sunny new logo and began to advertise their new green appearance to the public.

Flash forward to one of the worst "man-made" ecological disasters endangering the Gulf states and BP has rolled out yet another ad campaign, this time to apologize for the damages caused by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig. The expensive but lame apology came four weeks after the actual explosion, as the awful "visual" impact to the Gulf's wildlife and wetlands started to really hit the media in a big way. BP was suddenly no longer awash in feel-good green but drenched in its own stinking crude.

BP didn't invent greenwashing, of course, Nor did Haliburton, Transocean, or any of the oil companies for that matter. No, Big Oil is just one of the many sectors that realized early on it made shrewd business sense to be perceived as forward-thinking and environment-friendly. And let's be clear, there is a difference between marketing a green product and the practice of greenwashing. If a company is making or selling a product that truly does have some ultimate benefit to the environment, either through the product's intrinsic characteristics or its ability to be recycled, then fine. Greenwashing, on the other hand, is essentially a sly way for a company to express environmentalist concerns through their products, services or activities but whose real intentions are to erect a positive public image and ultimately secure good PR and more sales.

A little harmless advertising? No, greenwashing is not only disingenuous, it's unethical. It is a cynical practice that plays on the current sympathies (and fears) of the public. Moreover, it insults and devalues the genuine efforts of truly green companies and green entrepreneurs that are developing sustainable products, services and organizations. Soon, everyone will smirk or grimace when they hear the word "green." It's already happening.

A few years ago, I was excited by certain developments. Generally, people seemed to be joining the green revolution in a big way, with meaningful commitments to reducing and recycling and being vocal about pollution. Companies were starting to change the tone of their advertising. In business, we started to speak about social responsibility and giving back. All good things. I liked that business was talking about the environment and that "we" environmentalists, naturalists, conservationists, wildlife and animal lovers weren't perceived as being on the lunatic fringe anymore. You could say you wanted to save the boreal forest and not be dismissed as some fuzzy-thinking New Age freak.

Hallelujah.

But then, an ominous trend began to loom on the copywriting horizon. I began to feel very uneasy about the marketing and advertising I was hearing, reading and seeing. Certain products and companies were talking about being "green" that really, in all honesty, couldn't possibly be green no matter how much spin they could apply. How could they promote themselves as green? I found myself pondering this question more and more. If being green is a moral, ethical choice (protecting the earth for the greater good of all), then some companies were clearly walking a very fine ethical line by telling their little green fibs.

Well, not all the fibs were little. Some of them have proven to be real whoppers!

The biggest whopper yet has been the BP rebranding. Tragically, this point has been driven home in a dramatic, horrific way. I am not debating the merits of offshore drilling here. I recognize that civilizations need energy to sustain themselves and survive. The kind of energy we could be using instead must be a topic for another post. This post is about misleading the public with disingenuous "greenspeak."

The clock has struck and time is up: we as a society can no longer tacitly permit the culture of lying that dulls our brains, calcifies our cynicism and masks ugly truths and nasty realities with fine and pretty words. Greenwashing can do real harm. I think the environmental disaster in the Gulf is proof enough of that. It's just not good enough anymore for a company to say it is green. It ought to be able to back up those words with solid facts or authentic, sincere initiatives that support its claims. What is surfacing through all that BP marketing muck is a company that had anything but the integrity of the environment or the health and safety of its workers in mind—no substantially well-thought-out disaster plan and little disregard for anything but the profit margin.

If any good can possibly come out of this horrible and very preventable tragedy, maybe it is that people will be utterly and absolutely, for once and for all, revolted by corporate greenwashing. Going forward, consumers must be more analytical and skeptical, make informed and wiser choices, and hold businesses accountable for their claims.

True, advertising organizations around the world have reacted to protect consumers. For example, in Canada, the Competition Bureau along with the Canadian Standards Association discourage companies from making vague claims about their products' environmental impact, and any claims they do make must be backed up by readily available data.

Independent organizations also stepped in, issuing guidelines and carrying out their own studies. You can read Futerra's Greenwash Guide online and follow the latest (2009) TerraChoice Environmental Marketing Inc. study on what they have dubbed The Seven Sins of Greenwashing: the Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off, the Sin of No Proof, the Sin of Vagueness, the Sin of Irrelevance, the Sin of Fibbing, the Sin of Lesser of Two Evils and the Sin of Worshiping False Labels.

Maybe we need tougher laws and stricter penalties for these violations? But we cannot just leave it to the advertising councils and the corporate watchdogs. The consumer can play a huge role in keeping a company honest. As the people at www.trendwatching.com point out, thanks to the exploding social media scene, transparency will matter. The Internet and social media are handing the megaphone over to the public, so opinions can be voiced and products boycotted, and it can be done with immediacy and in great numbers. Refusing to buy a company's product or airing their shameful record can send shares plummeting. Just take a look at the latest business reports on BP stock.

As for corporate communications writers, spin is always going to be a part of the job. So is there a place for truth in marketing and advertising? Call me naïve but I think so, and I think it can be really good writing and design, too. Just as there are wonderful green entrepreneurs with great ideas, there are communications specialists that can help to spread the news. And it can be done with creativity, fun, joy...and truth. I think that people will applaud your efforts for trying to do some good, but they will never applaud your lie when the truth comes out.

So for goodness sake, let's stop greenwashing the world. Let's just clean it up. For real.

To see a list of some of the world's top greenwashing offenders (and BP made that list long before the current oil disaster) check out this article at the Huffington Post.