I'm shocked, shocked to find greenwashing going on

In a famous line from the movie Casablanca, Captain Renault (played by Claude Rains) said: "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" That's a little bit how I feel when I hear the stories about companies greenwashing.

Corporations using advertising to wash their products with dubious claims did not start with green. They've been doing it for about as long as they've been advertising. I would bet that if you went back to the Stone Age, you'd find someone selling a spear that had broken in half as "lighter" than other spears. "You can carry twice as many on your next mastodon hunt," the brochure would have read (had they had access to Pagemaker and a laser jet).

But you certainly don't have to go back that far to find this kind of washing. Consider Frito-Lay and their Cheetos Puffs. The front of their package (pictured here) says "0 GRAMS TRANS FAT" and "MADE WITH REAL CHEESE!" The obvious message is 'this product is good for you.' Well, the nutritional information tells a much different story. There may not be any trans fat, but every ounce has one and a half grams of saturated fat and ten grams of total fat. As for the real cheese, it's in there. Listed on the ingredients just after "salt." So, one 11-ounce bag of these "nutritious" snacks will give you more than 150 percent of your daily fat needs with just a pinch of cheese.

This kind of puffery (pun intended) can be found on products everywhere and it's no surprise to me that these same corporations are now doing the same thing with their green claims. It's also why, as John Grant says in his excellent book The Green Marketing Manifesto, advertising is not as good as PR or online when it comes to some kinds of green marketing (page 63). As Grant states on page 85, "Marketing always focuses on the most attractive features of a product or company" (Like "0 GRAMS TRANS FAT" and "MADE WITH REAL CHEESE!" I might add). I completely agree with Grant on this point. Although advertising has a role to play in educating consumers on your greenness, PR and online are more important outlets because they are more conversational in nature.

So if companies are constantly telling little white lies why is it that the little green ones get them in more trouble? I'm not sure I agree with Grant's theory. He says it's because the environment is so important (page 76, 80). It certainly is, but is childhood obesity that results (partly) from fattening snacks unimportant? I think it's more likely that the outrage over green lies is due to the number of green organizations and web sites like the recently established Greenwashing Index created by EnviroMedia Social Marketing who are policing company claims.

Whatever the cause, companies beware. Little green lies aren't excused as readily as the white variety. There are plenty of people out there watching you. So the next time your advertising agency comes to you with some green messaging to slap on your product, you better make sure it's green all the way through and not just on the surface.