Greenwashing -- enough is enough

Greenwashing, as you know, is the practice of misleading consumers about a business's environmental practices or about the pro-environmental benefits of a product or service. Like this infamous recent Shell ad, for example, in which oil refineries emit flowers from their smokestacks:

An article in The Guardian today notes that the number of complaints lodged to Great Britain's Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) relating to environmental or green claims has more than quadrupled in the past year. In 2006, the ASA received 117 complaints about environmental claims in 83 advertisements; in 2007, they received 561 complaints about a whopping 410 ads.

According to the ASA's annual report, which was released this week, the number of complaints on advertiser's green claims became one of the two key emerging issues for consumers in 2007; the other issue was images of violence and weapons. Claims that products and services were carbon "neutral" or "zero" or "negative" were particularly open to challenge, notes the report; same thing goes for statements claiming products to be "100% recycled" or "wholly sustainable."

Also this week, the British ad agency Futerra, which calls itself "the sustainability communications agency; from green to ethical, climate change to corporate responsibility," released a Greenwash Guide. Here's what to look out for on advertising and packaging, they warn:

1. Fluffy language. Words or terms with no clear meaning, e.g. "ecofriendly."

2. Green products v dirty company. Such as efficient light bulbs made in a factory which pollutes rivers.

3. Suggestive pictures. Green images that indicate an (unjustified) green impact eg flowers blooming from exhaust pipes.

4. Irrelevant claims. Emphasizing one tiny green attribute when everything else is "ungreen."

5. Best in a bad class? Declaring you are slightly greener than the rest, even if the rest are pretty terrible.

6. When it's just not credible. "Ecofriendly" cigarettes anyone? "Greening" a dangerous product doesn't make it safe.

7. Gobbledygook. Jargon and information that only a scientist could check or understand.

8. Imaginary friends. A "label" that looks like third party endorsement... except it is made up by the company itself.

9. No proof. It could be right, but where's the evidence?

10. Outright lying. Totally fabricated claims or data.

Count me in on this anti-greenwashing stuff. Several weeks ago, I started a Flickr group photo pool called "Greenwashing." But I never got around to uploading any ads. I'm going to upload some today!

Here's my first entry, an ad for Fiji bottled water: