Research Prospectus and Bibliography

As we are continually faced with the increasing issues of global warming, many people are seeking ways to improve our situation by any means possible. However, as more and more people feel the urge to “go green”, companies are coming up with ways to present themselves as an ecologically friendly business, whether they are ecologically friendly or not. Not every company is misleading but an increasing amount of businesses are either stretching the truth or overemphasizing their minor changes to mask the larger problems at hand. Even several companies that are making changes often spend much more on advertising their minor improvements and use misleading words and labels.

Everywhere we go we see a label or advertisement that has some claim of being recycled, natural, organic, eco-friendly, etc. Some companies have made changes to their products and have good intentions. But the problem is deciding which claims are the most truthful and which claims have a financial motivation. According to Terrachoice Environmental Marketing agency, greenwashing is “the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.” There are many different ways a company can greenwash a product such as showing off their newest eco-friendly product while ignoring the fact that they are polluting the air elsewhere on other products, or just flat out making false claims. Other ways to greenwash products is by using vague words to describe how “healthy” something is or by making up a third-party endorser that doesn’t exist.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is responsible to enforce the laws and consequences of misleading advertisements, and complaints should be sent to them. But according the Greenpeace, “the FTC has not taken action against any greenwash ads since 2000” (stopgreenwash.org). There could be many reasons for this but one might be that there are so many “green” advertisements that even the FTC is struggling to provide guidelines and regulations on how companies should advertise because they don’t know how to judge the benefits and consequences of each companies’ claim.

Just because a large majority of companies are greenwashing their products doesn’t necessarily mean that we shouldn’t support “green” items or that none of these attempts really matter. Companies are in control of our basic needs; we are surrounded by advertisements and choices need to be made. Every measure counts when trying to reduce our damage to the environment and companies should make it easier for the consumers to understand what they are buying. On the other hand, as consumers we have a job to do our research and file complaints when we feel that an advertisement or label is misleading or vague. When it comes down to it, consumers that are genuinely concerned with helping the environment should choose products that have trusted “eco-labels” and/or descriptions of their ecological benefits. We have to take action in order to hold companies accountable for deceiving us as consumers or else little will be done to end this trend of greenwashing.

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"FTC Cites Kmart, Tender, Dyna-E for False Green Claims." Environmental Leader. N.p., 10 June 2009.

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GreenPeace Greenwashing. N.p., 27 Jan. 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. <http://stopgreenwash.org>.

"Greenwashing Screens and Green Program Development." Terrachoice Environmental Marketing. N.p.,

n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. <http://www.terrachoice.com/>.

Smith, Margaret. "Green is Good." How Far Has Greenwashing Gone? The Conflicts of Natural and

Organic Food. N.p., 30 Dec. 2009. Web. 30 Jan. 2010. <http://blog.buzzflash.com/greenisgood/ 030>.

Walsh, Bryan. "Eco-Buyer Beware: Green Can Be Deceiving." Time. N.p., 11 Sept. 2008. Web. 30 Jan.

2010. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1840562,00.html>.