Greenwashing is the unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue by a company, an industry, a government, a politician or even a non-government organization to create a pro-environmental image, sell a product or a policy, or to try and rehabilitate their standing with the public and decision makers after being embroiled in controversy.
This is a broad brush definition. What just what is unjustified? That is going to be in the eye of the beholder, so I think it is important that we train the beholder to ask the right questions.
Let’s look at the label as I discussed in two recent posts — Starbucks and Clorox (Brita water filters). In the case of Starbucks the company was accused of greenwashing because it used and wasted a lot of water in cleaning its utensils. Is this greenwash? What are the water specific claims that Starbucks is making that this contradicts? Can a whole company’s efforts be condemed because they are not doing everything all at once?
Now look at the case of Clorox and their campaign to encourage people to not buy bottle water because of the waste associated with plastic water bottles. In this case Clorox is asking people to use its products instead of competitors (filtered water is definitely a competitor of bottled water) because the competetiors’ products are wasteful. However, Clorox itself is not recycling a product that is recyclable, and that is recycled in Europe. That is greenwash — Clorox is using one environmental claim to sell its products while at the same time not living up to the actual promise of its own products and capabilities.