A Glance Back at Natural Capitalism and Greenwashing Week
Site Goal #1:
Help consumers be more savvy about evaluating environmental marketing claims of advertisers.Site Goal #2:
Hold businesses accountable to their environmental marketing claims.Site Goal #3:
Stimulate the market and demand for sustainable business practices that truly reduce the impact on the environment.
The argument being made on this site is towards responsibility on the parts of both consumers and advertisers or businesses that sport the green banner. It is an attempt to discourage greenwashing: “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.” The site promotes a kind of knowledge-generating interaction between consumers by means of The Index that aids in the spread of awareness, regarding certain businesses and their marketing ethics. Consumers view the eco-advertisements that herald the environmentally friendly quality of certain products or businesses and post the advertisement to the site. Then using The Index, consumers can rate the business or product for the benefit of other viewers and consumers:
THE INDEX
An automated tool that scores your response to five statements about the relevance of marketing claims in an ad. 
The Index provides the means for a kind of checks-and-balances system between the businesses and the consumers. The consumers do their part by basically grading the advertisements they see and are exposed to based on the set of criteria provided by The Index, spreading awareness to other members of their immediate community and on to the greater general public. This vigilance encourages businesses to stay true to the environmental claims they make in their advertisements, addressing the concerns and issues of their consumer-audience that are posted on the site. The goal, then, goes beyond simply holding everyone accountable and responsible for the environmental impacts of their actions towards actual, sustainable results and feasible improvements to the environmental situation. As the bar is raised by each post of the “Voted World Offenders” in regards to the environmental address of certain advertisements, the logic follows that businesses would work twice as hard to achieve and maintain environmentally healthy standards that are deemed acceptable by the consumers, creating a perpetual chain of progress towards environmental sustainability. The site even offers businesses the chance to view advertisements that have received better ratings – “Voted Most Authentic” advertisements – so that they might discover what exactly is at stake, what their audience is most concerned about, what actions they can and should take to help improve the environment. Unfortunately, a potential backfire of this process might be that businesses would only focus on being more persuasive to audiences rather than actually addressing environmental issues.
It seems that any consumer, self-identified or otherwise, who is environmentally-conscious or concerned about the planet’s eco-condition can participate or get involved in this process of greenwash indexing. Anyone can register or sign-up for the mailing list “to stay up-to-date with the Greenwashing Index” – although it is to be expected that the certain types of consumers, who are more likely to be drawn to The Index site, would be self-identified environmentalists or people very much involved and knowledgeable of this greenwashing problem. This acceptance and welcoming of all consumers (with internet access) still goes to show the site’s dedication to the free movement of information towards promoting consumer awareness. Any and all consumers are welcome to contribute to the project in the view that all consumers have valid points to make regarding business marketing schemes and claims for the environment. At the same time, however, this very openness could be cause for doubt as to the reliability of the given business ratings – the case for all such instances that involve ratings given by the general public. Consumers are entitled to their opinions based on the advertisements they rate, but figuring out which person to trust or believe can be quite difficult. Fortunately, this reality can be taken as more of a motivator rather than a confusing set-back. The very nature of this site’s opinion-based rating system, The Index, can encourage consumers to conduct their own research either to verify the comments that are being raised on the site or to supplement their own capabilities in interpreting the various advertisements posted. It is difficult to accept many of the comments at face-value, but hopefully this would act not as a deterrent but as a form of encouragement for other consumers to do research in an attempt to either verify or render false the claims made by other consumers.
EnviroMedia certainly finds it necessary to put up a Greenwashing Index online in the public domain for the use of all consumers, assuming that the tool would greatly benefit a society that might not be as eco-conscious or simply aware of certain marketing tactics as should be the case. It assumes that people are not in conversation with each other about the claims that businesses make, that people cannot simply be left to rate businesses amongst themselves, that people need something to help them remain organized, to facilitate communication and an easy flow of information. The Index is provided as a resource to those, who would otherwise be at the mercy of any business’s exaggerated claims and misleading content. The hope is that, with the help of The Index, consumers would have the opportunity to enter into a conversation with both the businesses and other consumers and engage in a process of improving the environment by addressing man’s impacts. One possible thesis for the argument presented on this site might read: a system of cooperation and healthy conversation between consumer and big business is necessary in clearing the path towards environmental sustainability. Another might read: the greenwashing distraction can only be avoided by maintaining a healthy relationship between consumer and big business. In a section called “Purpose of the Greenwashing Index,” the dangers of such a distraction are taken into account and hopes for true environmental improvements are clearly expressed:
And the challenges of climate change are too important for us to be distracted. This site is here to make sure that doesn’t happen. Our goal is to educate consumers about how to “read” an ad and encourage them to decide for themselves if what they’re seeing is greenwashing. Our hope is that with a better-informed public, businesses will start to:
Have a sustainable business before they advertise they’re a sustainable business
Be accountable for the sustainable practices they claim to have
That way we can put an end to the greenwashing and get busy with real environmental change.
The problem of greenwashing is discussed in the section entitled “About Greenwashing: Why is Greenwashing a Problem?” – “…greenwashing is bad for the environment…The last thing you want to do is spend money on a product or service you believe is doing right by the environment, but in reality is not…greenwashing backfires, hurting the company’s reputation and ultimately, their sales….” But the real evidence to the problem is in the sheer volume of problematic advertisements or “World Offenders” posted and rated. Consumers are responding to the greenwash of various businesses and spreading the news. Evidence of a global spread of awareness can be seen in some of the dialogue that occurs in the “Comments” section of The Index. The following comments respond to the Easyjet CO2 claim posted on November 24, 2008 and given a 4.6 Average Rating (a 5 rating is considered “bogus”):
Spargo’s of Netherlands gave this ad a
I do think Easyjet has good initiatives to reduce CO2 emission from their planes However this advertisement claims that flying is environmentally more friendly than driving a Prius. Apart from the fact that emissions on a higher altitude are more harmful, they seem to have used a comparison that is very positive for Easyjet…Green-Rising-Marketing of Salt Lake City gave this ad a
December 17, 2008
Comments:
I agree, and rated it 5 on everything, b/c it fits so solidly in with what is being rated. It IS vague…it makes a comparison but does not substantiate it (an obviously outlandish claim that most would like to see backed up), and the comparison is very hard to believe. Perhaps they are comparing emissions during travel, and are negating emissions during take off and landing which are the highest and use the most gas…I think propelling a multi-ton vehicle and all its cargo into the air, would not compare well with a prius. I initially wanted to say good for them for raising people’s awareness about carbon emissions when flying, but the claims they make just seem preposterous. Holly Caughron Green Rising Marketing www.greenrisingmarketing.com
The Index site has enabled consumers around the world to enter into a conversation with others about the hazards of greenwash, whether or not it was actually intended by the business. The comments reveal how The Index can be used as an effective tool in warning others and raising awareness of the kinds of greenwashing that circulate in the media – “[the] more consumers see through greenwashing, the more it will fail.” This is the purpose of The Index. A potential harm, though, arises in this hopeful system in that consumers might be more eager to agree with the general mood or train of thought offered by previous posts. In this sense, The Index system would not encourage individual thought processes but consensus formation. Consumers might be more willing to conform to the popular rating rather than actually analyzing the claims of the advertisement.
What is left to witness are the actual environmental improvements promised and evidence of gradual greenwash reduction in the media. The site offers a generous glance of the side for consumers but the big businesses, whose advertisements are being rated, are not offered a space on this site for open communication with the consumers. Of course, the representatives of said businesses are welcome to register and dialogue with others in the “Comments” section about how improvements can be made, but this does not seem to be occurring. It is left hanging, whether or not businesses are actually taking into account the conversations that consumers are having about the greenwashing issue. Such evidence would prove invaluable to an understanding of The Index’s true effects – its success or failure to curb and ultimately eliminate greenwashing for the sake of real change, but it is reasonable to assume that evidence of these proportions would be rather difficult to acquire. We can only hope for the success of The Index, a positive response from various big businesses, and a brighter future for our environment.
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