I HAVE a new product I would like you to consider. You can feel good about it because it is eco-friendly. Using green technology, it reduces your carbon footprint while increasing your overall sustainability. It is organic, all-natural, gluten-free, low-carb, sugar-free, artisan-crafted, carbon-neutral and one hundred percent recyclable. It is a paper clip.
If you are feeling misled, you are not alone, and I am guessing it is not the first time you have fallen victim to this. My sales pitch, which hurled emotion-evoking, feel-good terms at you, is called greenwashing, and you are subjected to it every day.
Companies know that most of us are concerned about the health and well-being of the environment. Many of us agree that pollution is a problem, that we are trashing the world our children will inherit, and that something should be done, no matter how small, to turn the situation around. They know that most of us would prefer to eat healthier, to damage our environment less, and would like to think we are helping others around us. Even in unspecific ways, we like to help out, do our bit.
So, companies try to link their product or service to this inner desire by using greenwashing, a term used to describe advertising and product placement that makes us think they are with us. The problem with greenwashing, and why it is a negative word, is because like brainwashing, it makes us think things that are not true.
None of the terms used in the opening paragraph mean anything. They have no agreed definition. What makes a food organic and another food not? What does sustainable mean? Who is an artisan? What is all natural, and does that mean something is not natural? Did it come from space? Since there is no agreed-upon definition for these terms, companies are free to use them however they like. After all, if we don’t really know what eco-friendly means, how can you say that something is eco-unfriendly?
Greenwashing is not just a clever marketing tool used by advertisers. Over the years it has helped shift the debate about pollution off the producers onto the consumers. Most of us have come to accept without question that our gas-powered lawn mowers, backyard barbecue grills and plastic water bottles are destroying the planet. Even vegetarians want us to believe that the methane found in cow flatulence is destroying the ozone layer. Stop eating meat, for the sake of the planet! Too many cows are passing gas and killing us! Look it up.
By accepting that consumers are the ones destroying the planet, we stop looking at the super-polluters: the corporations and governments themselves. One fastfood restaurant generates more trash in a year than every person on Saipan. One power plant belches more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than every weber grill in California. While we are taking the blame for all the plastic bottles washing up on the shores of Saipan, the water companies who sell us the bottles receive no mention at all. What makes up the vast majority of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, that floating monstrosity trapped in the Northern Pacific gyre near Hawaii? Not consumer plastic. The most common category is discarded fishing debris, and the most common items are fishing nets, the giant ones used by purse seiners in the fishing industry.
Yes, we can all do better. But the next time you are lectured about your planet-polluting ways, do some quick math in your head. And the next time you read the package of fish at the supermarket, and they brag about sustainable catch, remember that their fishing fleets did more to pollute the environment in the last twenty-four hours than you did your entire life. Once we agree to focus on the real polluters we can start having a serious discussion about turning the planet around. And we can stop the greenwashing. Now, about that paper clip.
BC Cook, PhD lived on Saipan and has taught history for 20 years. He currently resides on the mainland U.S.
BC Cook
