Green Daily

Since consumers started embracing their inner treehugger (although generally not so much that we're willing to pay a green premium), savvy marketers have been hyping everything from SUVs to patio furniture as if they heralded the dawning of the age of eco-Aquarius. That, in turn, has led to a backlash, with civic-minded bloggers seeking out and slamming organizations perceived as exaggerating their enviro-credentials.

Exposing hypocrisy isn't a bad thing, and false advertising is out and out wrong, moreso when it makes a deceptive appeal to our sense of virtue. However, cynical society that we are, it's easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater by taking more interest in criticizing companies for what they don't do than recognizing them for taking steps in the right direction.

All our actions have an environmental impact, and the only truly benign human is six feet under, peacefully feeding the earthworms and fertilizing the hydrangea. Since we're generally agreed that mass suicide isn't the favoured solution to the current crisis, any steps we take to keep the planet healthy are in some degree going to be half-measures.

In other words, eco-friendly can only exist as a relative concept - no product or process is unequivocally green, but only greener than other products or processes intended to achieve the same goal.

A study released last year by eco-marketing firm Terrachoice called the Six Sins of Greenwashing" found that the majority - 57% - of the marketing claims assessed as greenwashing fell into a category they called the Hidden Tradeoff. This means that sure, the claim is accurate, but there are other, less eco-friendly things going on behind the scenes that the company isn't bragging about.

Ok, but is that so unreasonable? Surely we're still in the baby step stage here. I'm not a big fan of Walmart for a variety of reasons, but if we're going to knock them for shipping mop heads from China, we should also acknowledge their considerable efforts in sustainability, such as testing out solar panels in some of their stores. The fact that mop head transportation spews a lot of carbon doesn't mean solar power isn't a good idea.

"Find the greenwash" is an easy game to play. For example, on the Terrachoice site - why do they want me to download a "Six Sins" wallet card? Won't that use up paper, and ink, and valuable electricity? And does it really benefit me, or do they just want to carry the Terrachoice logo around in my pocket? Greenwashing!

In a recent article in Grist, green venture capitalist Vinod Khosla criticized hybrid cars, pointing out, among other things, that they were expensive and unlikely to catch on in sufficient numbers (especially in rapid auto-acquiring societies like India and China) to put a meaningful dent in our greenhouse gas emissions. His point was that the resources invested in that particular technology would be better served going to other projects, such as the development of a viable industry in cellulosic biofuels (something Khosla's company is invested in.)

Predictably, he got a lot of push-back from hybrid enthusiasts who dragged out their own sets of numbers to show that hybrids were efficient, spectacularly so, and getting better, and that cellulosic biofuels are a pipe dream in a distant future.

So who's right? Is Toyota the greenwasher, or Khosla?

Well, both. Or neither.

The fact is we can crunch numbers til George Bush joins Greenpeace, but the future remains unpredictable, especially when dealing with questions as incompehensibly complex as the effects of pollution on our climate, our planet and our society. Throw in other variables like peak oil and food shortages and what you've really got is anybody's guess as to how we pull our collective fat out of the fire. Your cynical greenwashing may be my Gaia-saving breakthrough, and for all practical purposes, we may both be right.

There is no one-size-fits-all enviro-solution. The hybrid auto, like wind farms and wind-up MP3 players, is part of a general trend towards diminishing our footprint on the earth, and we need to pursue every avenue until we figure out what's going to work. But it's unlikely that anyone's going to give up all their old ways of doing business immediately.

So yes, be careful. It's always been caveat emptor out there, and we shouldn't tolerate lies when so much is at stake. But it's worth recognizing that a lot of people, and a lot of organizations, are making genuine attempts to clean up their act, and they should be encouraged. Until we get to 'best", we can at least acknowledge "better".