This past June 16th I posted a short note called "Is it a Case of 'Greenwashing?" Last week my wife ran across this article she had saved from the Mankato Free Press. I thought it deserved posting.
Article from the Mankato Free Press, August 5, 2007 by staff writer Tim Krohn.
"Green-Washed" companies in it for Green-Back$ ---- Not Saving Earth
The rugged, yet sensitive trucker in the television ad is driving his big rig along a drab, sepia-toned desert highway. As the big, diesel 18-wheeler heads down the road the sky behind the truck turns bright blue, the grass greens, butterflies and birds dart in the air. A pretty young woman walking through a field of now colorful wildflowers smiles coyly at the trucker.
I figured it must be an advertisement for air freshener or maybe an organic lawn fertilizer. Turns out it's put out by some coalition of international energy conglomerates. Their message isn't just that they're burning fossil fuels that spew out a bit less mercury and carcinogens - they're apparently cleaning the landscape to its pristine state every time they fire up a coal plant or refine some more gasoline.
Big polluting corporations trying to frame themselves as environmentally friendly -"greenwashing" themselves - isn't anything new. It started around 1990 on the 20th anniversary of Earth Day as companies scrambled to cover their pitiful environmental records. Nothing like a slick ad campaign to detract from the Exxon Valdez oil slick.
Recently Ford touted its environmental commitment by focusing on its hybrid vehicles - even though those hybrids account for one-half of one percent of its fleet and Ford makes money mostly from its big fleet of F-150 trucks which had the worst-in-class fuel efficiency.
BP is even bolder. The gas company's logo, a green and yellow sunburst, resembles the sunflower logo of many green groups, and they have a slick ad campaign called "Beyond Petroleum." It's supposed to show their commitment to alternative, renewable and low-polluting fuels. Never mind they're being sued for letting hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil spill onto the Alaskan tundra or that they face criticism around the world for human rights, pollution and safety violations. BP sold solar panels that will save a half-million tons of carbon dioxide over their lifetime. Still, the company's fossil fuels emit some 1,300 million tons of carbon dioxide every year.
These days corporate America is refining the way it presents its green facade.
Wal-Mart is doing everything short of sending their "associates" to our homes to screw in the new energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs in its effort to help us be kind to the Earth.
Bank of America says it will spend $20 billion for sustainable projects.
IBM - known as Big Blue - has launched a Big Green campaign.
If this keeps up, I expect to see the CEO of Exxon holding hands with a Greenpeace volunteer singing "Kumbaya" on the banks of a sparkling clear river teeming with happy fish…Oh, wait, Greenpeace is already spoken for - by McDonald's! Not long ago that would seem farfetched, but McDonald's has actually teamed up with Greenpeace to fight deforestation in South America.
I don't know about you, but I don't feel better knowing short-sighted, money-driven multinational corporations say they're going to take care of our environmental problems.
I still like real environmentalists. They're often unrealistic wing-nuts, but they live what they passionately believe in. Forget Ronald McDonald peddling recyclable Whopper cartons. Give me a guy in non-leather shoes and a banana-leaf shirt chaining himself to an old growth fir tree to stop the bulldozers.
There's some things we can't trust to the Fortune 500. The environment's one of them.
Tim Krohn is a Free Press staff writer. He can be contacted at
(507)344-6383 or
tkrohn@mankatofreepress.com
Article from the Mankato Free Press, August 5, 2007 by staff writer Tim Krohn.
"Green-Washed" companies in it for Green-Back$ ---- Not Saving Earth
The rugged, yet sensitive trucker in the television ad is driving his big rig along a drab, sepia-toned desert highway. As the big, diesel 18-wheeler heads down the road the sky behind the truck turns bright blue, the grass greens, butterflies and birds dart in the air. A pretty young woman walking through a field of now colorful wildflowers smiles coyly at the trucker.
I figured it must be an advertisement for air freshener or maybe an organic lawn fertilizer. Turns out it's put out by some coalition of international energy conglomerates. Their message isn't just that they're burning fossil fuels that spew out a bit less mercury and carcinogens - they're apparently cleaning the landscape to its pristine state every time they fire up a coal plant or refine some more gasoline.
Big polluting corporations trying to frame themselves as environmentally friendly -"greenwashing" themselves - isn't anything new. It started around 1990 on the 20th anniversary of Earth Day as companies scrambled to cover their pitiful environmental records. Nothing like a slick ad campaign to detract from the Exxon Valdez oil slick.
Recently Ford touted its environmental commitment by focusing on its hybrid vehicles - even though those hybrids account for one-half of one percent of its fleet and Ford makes money mostly from its big fleet of F-150 trucks which had the worst-in-class fuel efficiency.
BP is even bolder. The gas company's logo, a green and yellow sunburst, resembles the sunflower logo of many green groups, and they have a slick ad campaign called "Beyond Petroleum." It's supposed to show their commitment to alternative, renewable and low-polluting fuels. Never mind they're being sued for letting hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil spill onto the Alaskan tundra or that they face criticism around the world for human rights, pollution and safety violations. BP sold solar panels that will save a half-million tons of carbon dioxide over their lifetime. Still, the company's fossil fuels emit some 1,300 million tons of carbon dioxide every year.
These days corporate America is refining the way it presents its green facade.
Wal-Mart is doing everything short of sending their "associates" to our homes to screw in the new energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs in its effort to help us be kind to the Earth.
Bank of America says it will spend $20 billion for sustainable projects.
IBM - known as Big Blue - has launched a Big Green campaign.
If this keeps up, I expect to see the CEO of Exxon holding hands with a Greenpeace volunteer singing "Kumbaya" on the banks of a sparkling clear river teeming with happy fish…Oh, wait, Greenpeace is already spoken for - by McDonald's! Not long ago that would seem farfetched, but McDonald's has actually teamed up with Greenpeace to fight deforestation in South America.
I don't know about you, but I don't feel better knowing short-sighted, money-driven multinational corporations say they're going to take care of our environmental problems.
I still like real environmentalists. They're often unrealistic wing-nuts, but they live what they passionately believe in. Forget Ronald McDonald peddling recyclable Whopper cartons. Give me a guy in non-leather shoes and a banana-leaf shirt chaining himself to an old growth fir tree to stop the bulldozers.
There's some things we can't trust to the Fortune 500. The environment's one of them.
Tim Krohn is a Free Press staff writer. He can be contacted at
(507)344-6383 or
tkrohn@mankatofreepress.com
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