Greenwashing

Big Oil is up to its usual tricks. The American Petroleum Institute (API), one of the oil industry’s main lobbying groups, was recently busted by a Greenpeace activist for some serious greenwashing. API has resisted climate change legislation, and has supported fracking and the Keystone pipeline development. Now, it seems, they’re building an advertising campaign [...]

Read On »

In Ken Belson’s New York Times article on NASCAR, the author highlights the green initiatives being taken within the industry. NASCAR, going green? It seems like an oxymoron as he suggests. The industry exists due to a grand desire to watch fast vehicles going in circles consuming a gallon of fuel every four to five miles.

Read On »

With the rising number of people participating in the likes of “occupy wall street,” are consumers and investors ready to do more than embrace the change for social and environmental responsibility? This article is designed to make readers question themselves as consumers or investors in terms of pointing fingers at the not-so-responsible companies and the fundamental steps required by the stakeholders (consumers, companies and investors) to take to address social and environmental problems associated with the traditional management practices (financial bottom-line imperative). Investors are likely to be attracted in purchasing equities that will deliver the most profit. Companies will always focus on delivering financial performance to the shareholders. Consumers wil always look for the best deal. The less socially responsible companies would self-correct if both the consumers and investors turned their backs. The challenge lies in finding investors willing to support socially responsible companies at their typically higher price tags. Are consumers ready to pay a premium as well? What is your thought?

Read On »

As standards become more well-defined and consumers demand more transparency, companies are increasingly in need of the skills to, first of all, begin that difficult process toward the ever-evolving “sustainable” business. But for those already on that path, an understanding of how to report and communicate their successes and hurdles is becoming essential as well. [...]

Read On »

US Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe is a busy man, working incessantly on securing the future of the Postal Service. Yet, last week he found the time to attend the COP17 climate conference in Durban, South Africa, where according to a USPS press release he “heralded the U.S. Postal Service’s sustainability successes, making the business [...]

Read On »

Sustainability has become a trend for the companies and today every good product should meet ecological, economic and social standards. Consumers are paying for these kinds of objects in a attempt to do their part. But the truth is that some of these products are not buying what they promise. By faking their advertisements, some companies might not be playing a fair game.

Read On »

An ad on the sidebar of my Facebook profile caught my eye: “What do you recycle?” it innocently asks. The link underneath, www.PlasticsMakeItPossible.com, is enough to make the stomach churn, but I figured that by clicking, the worst that would happen is the company would pay Facebook for a clickthrough, so I went ahead and [...]

Read On »

Product labeling is an area where loopholes and CSR seem to converge. It is precisely these loopholes that make it easy for companies to engage in a degree of greenwash but there is a thin line between ‘greenwash’ and ‘misleading the consumer.’  A recent lawsuit against ConAgra proves this point. The American food giant that owns [...]

Read On »

The Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company has come under fire for the introduction of its ‘eco-friendly’ cigarettes. Beyond questioning whether or not cigarettes can ever truly be ‘green,’ the ads for these cigarettes have environmentalists up in arms because of the way they divert attention from the very unhealthy reality of the company’s actual product. [...]

Read On »

There are reports of greenwashing in the news pretty much constantly. However when TIME reports that “nearly all products’ eco-friendly claims are bogus or misleading” you begin to take notice, worry or both. A study by Terrachoice last year suggested an increase of 73% in the number of items with eco-credentials that are sold by [...]

Read On »

CBS San Francisco reports here that so called compostable utensils are  often filtered out from other compost materials and are instead being diverted to landfill. Furthermore, it is noted that commercial composters would rather not have to deal with them in the first place. In addition to leaving the environmental benefits of compostable utensils diminished, [...]

Read On »

This post is part of a blogging series by marketing students at the Presidio Graduate School’s MBA program. You can follow along here. By Marasie Schumacher Just over a year has passed since the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and we rarely hear about it anymore in the news. Instead we are bombarded with the latest images [...]

Read On »

Amazon, the nation’s largest online retailer, has broken out the environmental purchasing habits of their customers by region. Amazon tallied the annual purchases made regarding books and products related to water conservation, energy savings, garden-to-table, and green parenting. As companies amp up for Earth Day sales, perhaps a bit of an oxymoron, the press releases [...]

Read On »

This post is part of a blogging series by marketing students at the Presidio Graduate School’s MBA program. You can follow along here. By Kim Morris As we emerge from a difficult economic period, management teams are focused on penny-pinching and everyone is cutting corners. As a result, most companies strive to do as little [...]

Read On »

This post is part of a blogging series by marketing students at the Presidio Graduate School’s MBA program. You can follow along here. By Carrie Staller If companies were children, and greenwashing was a four-letter word, many mouths would have been washed out with soap.  Organic soap.  In case you missed the train or are [...]

Read On »

This post is part of a blogging series by marketing students at the Presidio Graduate School’s MBA program. You can follow along here. By Dale Wannen Marketing the sustainability of products has always been a touchy subject.  Greenwashing seems to always be looming around the corner.  This past week amidst numerous natural disasters, Dawn commercials [...]

Read On »

Greenwashing has become a sufficiently widespread problem that the term now has an entry in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. A more comprehensive definition, however, can be found here in the Dictionary of Sustainable Management – the nub of it being that it’s the practice of attaching a positive environmental association with an unsustainable product of service. [...]

Read On »

It was bound to happen sooner or later, and in this case it’s sooner. The green burial industry has hardly begun to pick up steam and it has already fallen prey to greenwashers. Greenwashing can be the source of much confusion and ill will in any field, and it can be especially toxic in the [...]

Read On »

Do we need to objectify women to sell green products? According to John B., founder and owner of Renewable Girls (RG), and the creator of the calendar that features Megan and her bananas, the answer is “yes.” There is even a name for it: ecosexism. Let’s be clear- women are not universally exploited in green culture [...]

Read On »

By Susan McPherson, Fenton January is a good time to reflect on the year past and to think about trends and movements for the year ahead. Here are the trends/predictions that the Fenton “Good Business” team is forecasting for the coming year in Corporate Social Responsibility.  No longer a nice-to-have, corporate responsibility must have a [...]

Read On »

Another best practice label? Really. Really?! Social entrepreneur Michael Solomon has launched what he guarantees to be the final word in best practice labels: SEE What You Are Buying Into (Social Environmental Ethical). “This is a transparency mark. We’re identifying transparent businesses,” says Solomon. Why is he so sure that there is no way any [...]

Read On »

By Renee Sharp, Environmental Working Group In September 2008, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrated the signing of two bills (AB 1879 and SB 509) that, he said, would propel “California to the forefront of the nation and the world with the most comprehensive Green Chemistry program ever established.” Once they went into effect, he said, [...]

Read On »

By Hunter Richards Greenwash (verb, \ˈgrēn-wȯsh\) – “to market a product or service by promoting a deceptive or misleading perception of environmental responsibility”. It’s no secret that “going green” has become the next big thing in the corporate world. Riding the wave of consumers’ growing interest in environmental sustainability, companies are launching major ad campaigns [...]

Read On »

A Response to Dinesh Thirupuvanam’s Article on Biodegradability Claims By Robert Eisenbach, VP Marketing, Green Genius Last week, Triple Pundit published a post entitled “California’s ‘Truthful Environmental Advertising in Plastics’ Bill Awaiting Action.” In it, author Dinesh Thirupuvanam addresses an issue we at Green Genius believe is a serious problem: confusion and misinformation about the [...]

Read On »

By: Dinesh Thirupuvanam When most people see that a product or package is marked “biodegradable” they think that they can toss the product on the side of a road or into a landfill and it’s going to breakdown in a reasonably short period of time. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Today, the term biodegegradable [...]

Read On »

The reason that you’re able to read Triple Pundit right now, along with 1000s of other small, independent publications is because the internet remains an essentially unregulated, free market for ideas and conversation. No website can be given priority over another in terms of access or download speed. But the net is getting crowded and [...]

Read On »

Bausch & Lomb, a leading maker of contact lenses and lens care solutions, has introduced Biotrue, a multi-purpose solution for cleaning and conditioning contact lenses. Marketed as the first lens solution that comes close to recreating the tears that occur naturally in eyes, Biotrue has appeared on many drugstore shelves and will launch a new advertising campaign next week.

Read On »

McDonald’s launched a new campaign recently, joining large brands like Starbucks and Barnes & Noble in the battle against actual local enterprises over the locavore (http://www.locavores.com/) market. New billboards in Seattle proclaim that the fries are made from spuds grown in Richland, a farming region about 200 miles from Seattle. But the fine print tells the real story: “Participation and duration may vary.”

Read On »

Years ago I lived in downtown Baltimore, where I was a graduate student at UMBC.  One of my favorite spots was Lexington Market, one of the city’s many public markets that evolved from a 18th century center of commerce to a 1970s eyesore.  I loved shopping there.  Granted, there was nothing organic sold in that [...]

Read On »

HSBC, the international and emerging markets bank based in London, last week said it has sold-off its shares in the Indonesian palm oil producer Sinar Mas following a Greenpeace report of alleged illegal forest clearance practices. Meanwhile, other companies, including Unilever, Kraft and Nestle, are backing out of palm oil contracts with Sinar Mas. (See [...]

Read On »