The Seven Sins of Greenwashing

Whitewash means to camouflage, conceal, cover up, deceive, gloss over or to make light of or to suppress. A clever variation of whitewash was "brownwash", which was also the name of a documentary movie about the whitewash inflicted on the English Test Cricket side by India, when the latter established its credentials as one of the world's leading Cricket playing nations. Older readers who saw the movie, may remember the excellent plummy commentary by the legendary Henry Blowfeld", affectionately known as "Blowers".

An excellent new word "greenwash" has now found its way into English and is used mainly describe the seven (deadly) sins about greening.

Sin of the Hidden Trade-off

A claim suggesting that a product is "green" based on a narrow set of imperatives without acknowledging other important environmental issues. A good example is the claim about paper manufactured from timber harvested from sustainable plantations. Other environmental factors in the paper-making manufacturing and distribution processes, such as greenhouse gas emissions, or chlorine used in bleaching may be equally or more important.

Sin of No Proof

An environmental claim that cannot be substantiated by easily accessible supporting information or by a reliable third-party certification. Examples are facial or toilet tissue products that claim various percentages of post-consumer recycled content without providing proof.

Sin of Vagueness

A claim that is so poorly defined or broad that its real meaning is likely to be misunderstood by the consumer "All-natural" is an example. Arsenic, uranium, mercury and formaldehyde are all naturally occurring, and poisonous. "Natural" is not necessarily "green".

Sin of Worshiping False Labels

A product that trough either words or images, gives the impression of third-party endorsement where no such endorsement exists; fake labels in other words.

Sin of Irrelevance

An environmental claim that may be truthful but is unimportant or unhelpful for consumers seeking environmentally preferable products. "CFC-free" is a common example, since it is a frequent claim despite the fact that CFC's are banned by law.  

Sin of Lesser of Two Evils

A claim that may be true within the product range, but that risks distracting the consumer from the greater environmental impacts of the category as a whole. Organic cigarettes could be an example of this sin, as might a fuel-efficient sport-utility vehicle.

Sin of Fibbing

Environmental claims that are false. Common examples are products claimed to be "energy efficient" certified or registered.

Useful links:

http://www.greenstuff.co.za/

http://www.mces.co.za/

http://sinsofgreenwashing.org/

Pieter Rautenbach