The Triple Bottom Line Blog

As the debate over what is or is not greenwashing continues (our contribution to the discussion can be found here), Scot Case of TerraChoice points out this thought-provoking post by Bob Langert on the McDonalds corporate blog:

I agree there are dangers associated with environmental marketing, but I actually think many companies are reluctant to talk about their environmental efforts because they are concerned they will only be met with criticism. After all, true progress is hard to define, and achieving perfection on the environmental front is impossible, because there will always be ways to improve.

But not talking about environmental efforts, or "greenmuting", can be a sin as well.

Langert goes on to provide his own list of the "Six Sins of Greenmuting," which basically involve companies' reluctance to publicly engage environmental issues at all out of fears they will get burned. As Langert, in effect, points out, as pressures to be socially and environmentally responsible continue to mount, you are likely to get burned sooner or later, one way or another; but if you get out in front of the issue and communicate freely about your honest efforts to do the right thing, the burns you suffer will almost surely be less severe and faster-healing (to push the "burning" metaphor perhaps one step too far).

An interesting case in point comes from the blog of hotelier Bill Marriott, which I discovered while writing this post. Marriott recently wrote about his company's efforts to make their corporate headquarters greener, involving recycling, energy conservation, and other initiatives.

What's interesting is that Marriott's post has drawn a few dozen comments--some of them thanking Marriott for his company's environmental efforts, but others offering criticisms from every possible direction. Some complain that the headquarters building is just the tip of the corporate iceberg ("How about the thousands of hotel rooms that leave lights on! As a Platinum client (over 100 nights a year . . . mostly Toronto Airport) I found out that all lights and music in your suites are put on at 2pm!!"); others say that customers ought to receive some of the financial benefits from environmental cost-saving ("Please put your money where your mouth is--if you want your customers to save water, than show them some green!"); others worry that worthy issues such as comfort may be getting short shrift ("Look at the way the poor soul in the picture is sitting. Can someone please find him a keyboard tray, with a proper mouse surface. Why not green and healthy--that's the ticket!"); and still others disdain the whole concept ("the efforts to reduce greenhouse gases is misguided and ill informed. The latest research does not point to man as the cause of a changing climate, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change and Mr. Gore's film notwithstanding").

If I were Bill Marriott, my reaction to this barrage of often-contradictory advice might well be to throw up my hands and wonder, "If this is what I get for trying to do the right thing, why do I bother?"

But of course that would be a short-sighted and counter-productive reaction--though perfectly human and understandable. And to Marriott's credit, I see no sign that he or his company are in fact responding that way.

I think they recognize this as one of the perennial truths of business (and of life): Anything good you do quickly gets taken for granted, and the conversation is always about "What's the next good thing you are going to do for us?" The only way to avoid criticism--well-founded or not--is to do nothing at all. And where's the fun in that?

Labels: Bob Langert, Communications and Marketing, Greenwashing, Marriott, McDonalds, Reporting and Transparency, Scot Case, TerraChoice

This report from TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, Inc., has been drawing a lot of attention in environmental and business circles. Titled "The Six Sins of Greenwashing," it's based on a study of over 1,000 products sold at big-box retailers, each of which made some sort of environmental claim. The startling findings: Out of 1,753 environmental claims, only one was found to meet the researchers' standards of accuracy and verifiability.

Based on this analysis, the report's authors conclude that "greenwashing is pervasive," posing a serious danger that consumers will be confused, misled, and ultimately driven to cynically disregard all environmental claims as meaningless or dishonest.

I have no doubt that greenwashing is, in fact, pervasive, and that many companies are guilty of exaggeration, obfuscation, and distortion when making environmental claims. (After all, the same is true in almost every other area of marketing and advertising.) But I also think the conclusions of the "Six Sins" report are just a trifle overblown, and that the authors have themselves succumbed to the temptation of stacking the deck in order to make a serious problem appear even more alarming--a bit of the kind of hype they accuse corporate marketers of practicing.

My doubts are based on what I see as the shaky basis of one of the "Six Sins of Greenwashing" outlined in the report. As summarized on Joel Makower's blog, the six sins are:

Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off--claims that suggest a product is "green" based on a single environmental attribute (the recycled content of paper, for example) or an unreasonably narrow set of attributes without attention to other important, or perhaps more important, environmental issues (such as the energy, climate, water, or forestry impacts of paper). Such claims aren't usually false, but paint a misleading picture of the product than a more complete environmental analysis would support. This was the most frequently committed "sin," made by 57 percent of all environmental claims examined.

Sin of No Proof (26 percent of all claims examined)--any claim that couldn't be substantiated by easily accessible supporting information, or by a reliable third-party certification. TerraChoice determined there to be "no proof" if supporting evidence was not accessible at either the point of purchase or at the product website.

Sin of Vagueness (11 percent of all claims examined)--any claim that is so poorly defined or broad that its real meaning is likely to be misunderstood by the intended consumer, such as "chemical free" or "all natural."

Sin of Irrelevance (4 percent of all claims examined)--claims that may be truthful but are unimportant and unhelpful for consumers, such as CFC-free products, since ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons have been outlawed since the late 1980s.

Sin of Lesser of Two Evils (1 percent of all claims examined)--environmental claims that may be true, but that risk distracting the consumer from the greater environmental impacts of the category as a whole, such as organic tobacco or green insecticides.

Sin of Fibbing (less than 1 percent of all claims examined)--claims that are simply false, typically by misusing or misrepresenting certification by an independent authority, when no such certification had been made.

Now, some of the "sins" listed here are genuine misdemeanors. Obviously lying about a product's environmental qualities (the Sin of Fibbing) is an absolute no-no. And making product claims that are true but fundamentally meaningless (the Sin of Irrelevance) is almost equally dishonest. TerraChoice is dead-on in criticizing companies that are guilty of these sins. And they are also right to suggest that companies making environmental claims ought to provide clear definitions and proof of their claims. So far, so good.

My problem is with the first of TerraChoice's sins--the Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off. Here we get into murkier territory, where the "greenwashing" label seems much more dubious.

It's undoubtedly true that judging the "greenness" of a product or company is a complex, many-layered process. It's also true that, in the final analysis, the environmental impact of an organization can only be measured by examining a whole host of issues, including the ones TerraChoice mentions--energy use, effect on global warming, and so on.

But does that make it fair to describe any less-comprehensive environmental claim as "greenwashing"--in effect, accusing the company that makes it of dishonesty? I don't see it.

To use one of TerraChoice's own examples: If a paper company truthfully describes a product (copy paper, for example) as being made from recycled materials, but doesn't also report its policies and practices in regard to (say) water consumption, does that make the "recycled materials" claim greenwashing? I don't see how.

Here's an analogy. A wealthy businessperson donates a million dollars to a local art museum. Accordingly, his name is carved in the museum lobby on a list of "Generous Benefactors." Now, suppose that businessperson also happens to be a stingy employer--pays lousy, provides no health benefits. Does that falsify the claim that he gave generously to support the museum? Clearly not. He's not a very nice guy--but he did support the museum, and there's nothing dishonest or misleading about carving his name on the lobby wall.

In its Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off, TerraChoice is saying, in effect, that any product claim regarding the environment is illegitimate unless the company making the claim has also performed a complete analysis of all its environmental policies and practices, and can demonstrate that those policies and practices meet or exceed current "green" standards. That strikes me as unreasonable.

And since this "sin" is by far the most prevalent one in the TerraChoice study, representing fully 57 percent of the sins they uncovered, it seems to me that this bit of shaky logic seriously undermines the very sweeping conclusions trumpeted by the study's authors.

The soundbite version of the report seems to say, "We investigated 1,753 environmental claims, and found that 1,752 of them were lies." But in fact the report merely says, "We investigated 1,753 environmental claims, and found only one of the companies making these claims had provided the details of a complete self-analysis which demonstrated that their environmental practices were of a high quality."

That statement is a lot less dramatic-sounding--but it's more accurate.

Am I nit-picking? Maybe so. But I think there are real dangers in the slightly inaccurate soundbite version of the report. By implying that virtually every company making environmental claims is lying (or at least blatantly distorting the truth), TerraChoice is encouraging cynicism among consumers and the media. It is also (unintentionally, I'm sure) lending support to the extreme right-wing view of environmentalism as phony, self-serving hype whose real purpose is to mislead and exploit innocent citizens and consumers.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of having companies perform complete and credible environmental audits, and I agree that activists and engaged consumers should examine the results of such audits when seeking eco-friendly companies to do business with. But it seems counter-productive to brand any company that doesn't yet meet this standard as a "greenwasher" deserving nothing but public contempt.

Rather than advancing the cause, pinning a "99 percent dishonest" label on companies' environmental efforts will encourage most consumers to throw up their hands in despair and simply disregard eco-claims in the future.

Labels: Greenwashing, Joel Makower, TerraChoice