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Contents The two minute version 10 signs of greenwash The temptation of greenwa

Contents The two minute version 10 signs of greenwash The temptation of greenwash A short history of greenwash The world wakes up to greenwash Greenwash: Annoying or dangerous? And the industry response is… Goodbye greenwash A virtuous or vicious cycle A greener future Learn more End notes 1 2 4 6 14 18 22 26 36 38 40 41 And greenwash is growing. The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK is upholding more and more complaints against advertising that can’t live up to its green bluster. Around the world regulators are trying to keep up, and the USA’s Federal Trade Commission has brought forward to 2008 its plan to review their environmental marketing guidelines. France has just announced new guidelines and the UK is reviewing the advertising Green Claims guidance. But is this enough? Why all the fuss? Greenwash isn’t simply annoying, it’s dangerous. In a market economy the consumer is king, and consumers have started sending strong environmental signals through their purchasing. This growing ‘green pound’ is a powerful force compelling the economy to clean up its environmental act. But consumers often rely on advertising and other corporate messaging to inform their purchasing choices, and greenwash is undermining confidence in that advertising. That confidence is now at an all time low, with only 10% of consumers trusting green information from business and government1. Without confidence in the claims, consumers are reluctant to exercise the power of their green purchasing, as they no longer know who or what to believe. This puts the whole market for the ‘green pound’ in danger and might damage the virtuous circle of companies promoting their green products, consumers choosing them over non-green products thereby encouraging The two minute version Greenwash is with us, and unless we take action, it is likely to be with us to stay. Greenwash is an environmental claim which is unsubstantiated (a fib) or irrelevant (a distraction). Found in advertising, PR or on packaging, and made about people, organisations and products. Greenwash is an old concept, wrapped in a very modern incarnation. business towards greater greenness. Greenwash is the spanner in the works that could sabotage the whole environmental movement within business. This guide reveals the industries most actively greenwashing, and those environmental claims most likely to be greenwash. Not enough is being done to prevent this accelerating negative feedback loop. None of the UK’s biggest advertising agencies claim to have training or guidelines for their staff on what is a justified green claim. And none of the main publications in the UK who sell advertising space have their own standard. It’s not all bad news Most greenwash is due to ignorance and/ or sloppiness rather than malicious intent, and businesses and advertising agencies can take simple steps to prevent greenwash slipping through. As a consumer, you too can spot the worst greenwash symptoms, and this guide lists the simple tests for ‘greenwash’ versus ‘good claims’. Tear off and keep our simple Greenwash Guide postcard for when you’re shopping. At a time of impending economic challenges, it’s more vital than ever that green messages have credibility. The next few years will demonstrate if together companies, agencies and consumers can spin the virtuous circle, or if runaway greenwash will bring the new green revolution crashing down. 1 From the international codes and research for this report we have identified 10 signs of greenwash, be it in an advert or a speech by a government minister. Cut out and keep 1. Fluffy language Words or terms with no clear meaning, e.g. ‘eco-friendly’ 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 a (un-justified) green impact e.g. flowers blooming from exhaust pipes 4. Irrelevant claims Emphasising one tiny green attribute when everything else is un-green 5. Best in class? Declaring you are slightly greener than the rest, even if the rest are pretty terrible 6. Just not credible ‘Eco friendly’ 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’s made up 9. No proof It could be right, but where’s the evidence? 10. Out-right lying Totally fabricated claims or data Actually there is a very simple answer to this question. It’s that you, the consumer, have started to change your buying patterns in a way that has caught the advertiser’s eye. Consider the example of ‘organic’ for a moment. The Co-operative Bank discovered that organic food sales in this country have doubled since 2000 and are now growing at an average of 25% per year2. By 2010 the organic market will be worth at least £2billion3. Think back only a decade or so and imagine trying to buy ‘organic’ in a high street supermarket. Organic then was for real green enthusiasts; the Good Life types. Today organics is a huge, and relatively young, market spilling out from food to new ‘marketing categories’ such as beauty products. And new markets make marketers twitchy with excitement. New green pound Overall, so called ‘ethical’ spending in the UK has jumped by 81 per cent since 20024; most of us have, in the last year, bought free-range eggs, or products with recycled content (like loo roll) or drunk fair-trade coffee. At a conservative estimate of £29.7bn5, the market is still relatively minor, but big companies can see the writing on the wall. Green has gone from the smallest of niches to a very desirable market all set to grow. There’s money to be made and that’s the greatest temptation of all. Of course it’s not only purchasing habits that are shifting, so are public expectations of companies’ behaviour. An overwhelming majority of us say companies should improve the social and environmental impacts of their products and services and 83% of us claim to think about a company’s green reputation when we shop (a hard core 38% feel this is very important) 6. So alongside the big juicy organic carrot of the ‘green pound’ is the threatening stick of customers’ growing expectations of action. These temptations have led to a boom-town attitude towards green and ethical advertising. Show me the money According to reports nearly £17 million was spent on advertising containing the words ‘CO2’, ‘carbon’, ‘environmental’, ‘emissions’ or ‘recycle’ from September 2006 to August 2007 alone. A similar search for the same terms in 2003 uncovers only £448k7 of advertising. And that new spend wasn’t coming from traditionally ‘green’ companies. The deepest pockets are said to be Veolia Environment, Exxon Mobil, the UK government, BSkyB and Marks & Spencer. The numbers aren’t in for this year yet, but we can expect to see that spend has doubled or more. Advertising is expensive, and it’s not an exact science - as Lord Lever the founder of Unilever purportedly acknowledged, “half our advertising is wasted; I just don’t know which half”. This growth in selling green is a sign of things to come: you want to buy green, you expect companies to be green, and they have eagerly started to tell you that they are… occasionally without good reason for doing so. Enter greenwash. 5 A short history of greenwash Greenwash is nothing new, but the current scale of it is. Industries that have never had a problem are now getting in on the act. And the world is watching. As we will see, the themes ‘unfounded’ and ‘irrelevant’ are equally important in judging greenwash, even if most of us are more concerned with the first crime: that of fibbing. Green words The term greenwash only officially became part of the English language in 1999 with that entry into the Oxford English Dictionary, but it’s been around a lot longer than that. In fact the first recorded use of the term was by David Bellamy in the periodical Sanity over twenty years ago. By Earth Day in 1990 the concept was catching on. Most greenwash back then didn’t include specific claims or marketing messages; instead it was more ham-fisted images of frolicking dolphins and lush rainforests set beside the company logo, all to convey an impression of eco-friendliness. These early attempts to green a company’s image now seem laughable, especially when you think that Bhopal, Exxon Valdez and other environmental and social corporate disasters were still fresh in the memory. But even these early attempts at greening company images didn’t stay fashionable and the 1990s saw only occasional greenwash spikes. Those were the years of specialist green products and outlets like the Body Shop. Although greenwash Motoring sector The full, and rather difficult to read, version of the Oxford English Dictionary defines greenwash as; “Disinformation disseminated by an organisation, etc., so as to present an environmentally responsible public image; a public image of environmental responsibility promulgated by or for an organisation, etc., but perceived as being unfounded or intentionally misleading.” 8 Perhaps more simply put uploads/Geographie/ greenwash-guide.pdf