In my opinion, 2007 is going to be a landmark year for environmental awareness. But some of that awareness will, unfortunately, come in the form of cynicism over green washing and even scamming. Aside from large corporate PR stunts that may be all smoke and mirrors, many small scale “entrepreneurs” are getting on the green band wagon in less that savory manners, according to this article in Forbes.
But I’m not too worried about it. In any boom time (And for green businesses the boom time is on the horizon) there will be a certain number of charlatans. A few publications will write articles highlighting some of them and a small handful of people will raise a stink saying that the whole green movement is a sham. They’ll quickly calm down when the multitude of legitimate businesses carry on.
PS – Why are so many scam companies headquartered in New Jersey or Florida? I’ve smelled that pattern before, am I hallucinating?
Forbes On Greenwashing and Green Scamming
By Nick Aster | February 9th, 2007 
2 Comments
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Comments
February 11, 2007 at 17:42 pm PST | Doug Snodgrass writes:
Nope, you’re not hallucinating – not about this anyway, whatever else is going on is strictly your business Nick. I’m in NY, we send our ne’er-do-wells to NJ and FL. And for the scamming that can go on over the green movement – yes, it’s a potential problem but that’s also kid of a sideways compliment. Only when a movement is viewed as credible does it have the ability to be used as a front by scammers.
February 11, 2007 at 20:16 pm PST | Anonymous writes:
I think cynicism over green washing can be beneficial to a point to provide quality control. There are so few well established and understood standards, such as LEED (leadership in energy and efficient design) or ISO 14001. A healthy dose of cynicism may do some good. What I tend to find less productive is when motives are questioned. I don’t really care why Walmart is going green; the impact is what matters.