Companies are becoming more competitive and consumers are concerned on the environmental problems. The organisations are attracting consumers with promotions of Green technology and services and companies claiming it to be green. In the last several years, there are companies issuing Green claims and accused of Greenwashing. The green products and Greenwash products are labeled to be eco-friendly while they are not and overstatement of high ratings of environmental claims. This also causes confusion and difficult to determine genuine eco-friendly products from a Greenwashing product. Many labels such as organic, earth-friendly or biodegradable are tools of marketing to attract consumers. Many consumers ask, “ Are they genuine green product and how much does it impact to the environment?” Greenwashing is defined as misleading claims of environmental benefits of a service, technology, product, or company practices in regards to environmental practices in the company. In other words misleading information by organisations, which abuses the environment and covered up to be a positive eco-friendly product. In a Oxford English Dictionary, they define greenwashing the early 1990s as” ‘the creation or propagation of an unfounded or misleading environmentalist image’.” (Michael Adams, Marina Nehme, Pg. 420 Green Marketing to Greenwashing) It is a marketing technique. It is also described as a firm behaviour as giving poor environmental performance and good environmental communication performance, known as Brown Firms. Greenwashing can be committed in seven ways or “the seven sins” by Terrachoice which is an environmental service provider and they are: The sin of trade off, Sin of no proof, Sin of Vagueness, Sin of Irrelevance, Sin of l... ... middle of paper ... ...le of Ecological Marketing Misleading Practices", Comparative Economic Research, vol. 12, no. 1-2, pp. 49. Delmas, Magali A.; Burbano, Vanessa Cuerel, California Management Review . Fall2011, Vol. 54 Issue 1, p64-87. 24p. 2 Diagrams, 1 Chart. . ISSN 0008-1256, DOI: 10.1525/cmr.2011.54.1.64. William S. Laufer, Journal of Business Ethics March 2003, Volume 43, Issue 3, pp 253-261 Social Accountability and Corporate Greenwashing, DOI 10.1023/A:1022962719299 Dahl R, Environmental Health Perspectives [Environ Health Perspect] 2010 Jun; Vol. 118 (6), pp. A246-52. Green washing: Do you know what you're buying?, DOI: 10.1289/ehp.118-a246 Tebbey, Nicholas, Keeping Good Companies (14447614). Oct2011, Vol. 63 Issue 9, p554-557. 4p. Greenwashing and other environmental scams. ISSN: 1444-7614 Coover, Leslie Charles. "Greenwashing global warming." (2008). July 10, 2008 p1-18
Green washing: The disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image. In order for big companies to stay on top of the market today, they are forced to think of advertising strategies to help their public image and advertise their product. Over the years the system has become very complex and also very questionable. Companies are willing to lie, change their logo, and sometimes even their company name just to keep their name and image clean in front of the public just to make sure that they are making their money. Green washing helps this by advertising to the public that they are environmentally supportive and responsible. Most people that are into buying “green products” do not even realize that the company they are buying from is green washing in some sort of way just so that they can attract attention to the public. Green washing companies may advertise that they are “eco-friendly”, but when it comes down to it, the facts hidden behind the curtains beg to differ. Just like in the green washing video we watched in class, the companies may look great compared to the worst companies, but that does not mean what they are doing is still productive for our environmental movement. One company that has been notorious for their green washing efforts for the past couple of decades is the Oil/energy company: British Petroleum a.k.a. Beyond Petroleum. They are one of the world’s largest leading oil companies who has also becoming a large energy supplying company with presence in petrochemicals, gas, and solar divisions. Over the past twenty years BP has been the cause of several deadly disasters in the oil business in the U.S. and around the world. Despite their green washing effor...
The “planet” aspect of a typical company is supposed to show how the company is benefitting the planet, ecologically, rather than destroying the Earth with pollution and waste. Better World Book’s term for the planet aspect is “loving your mother”, which applies to loving planet Earth. There is a book by Paul Hawken called, The Ecology of Commerce. In this book, Paul argues that, “a true economy mimics ecology in its circular no-waste systems and healthy fecundity of niches” (Better World Books). The company’s website discusses how they are trying to make the delivery of their books more sustainable. The company is going through a program where they know their carbon footprint and are trying to balance out the amount of carbon emissions that are generated through the entirety of the company’s production, including shipping and handling. They have done t...
Young, D. (2012). Green Marketing & Marketing Ethics, Room 009, Block 17, Middlesex University Dubai. (25th March, 2012)
Mercury and other heavy metal poisoning, as well as habitat contamination and destruction, could become commonplace if we don’t proceed cautiously in implementing Green solutions. To understand the problems with many of the Green solutions, how we got to this point, and what we can do it fix it we need to understand what the “Green Movement” is.
Belz, F., & Peattie, K 2012, Sustainability marketing: a global perspective (2nd ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Corporation often seeks to exploit the malleable minds of the youth for monetary benefit. This sponsorship comes in forms that are borderline brainwashing (or just plain outright brainwashing), such as Exxon’s “educational” videos, which promote the company as an environmentally friendly company, or Hershey promoting their junk food as healthy and “integral” to a daily balanced diet (Source A). Nike’s program on the environment also serves no other purpose than to give the company publicity and imp...
The power of “green” advertising lies in its sheer ubiquity and its particularly charismatic approach to manipulation. It feels good to support a cause, and who could possibly be (openly) against the environment? Because of its broad manipulation coefficient, “green” advertising--advertising that panders to our desire to make the planet clean again--is making a comeback. Innumerable advertisements still contain the sublime appeal of helping the planet. Green still
Treviño, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2007). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right Fourth ed., Retrieved on July 30, 2010 from www.ecampus.phoenix.edu
With the development of the science and technology, more and more people are going for healthy and green products. According to this situation, there are many companies claim their products are “green”. However, there are thousands of so-called “green” products, but not all of them live up to their claims, a considerable part of products not only damage the human’s body, but also pollute the environment. People called these companies “greenwashing”. Greenwashing refers to the practice of deceiving consumers into believing that a company is practicing environmentally friendly policies and procedures. Seems like anything and everything has “gone green” these days. Such as airlines, car companies, retailers, restaurants, even networks and stadiums. Thankfully, more often than not, that’s a good thing. It is only bad if it is greenwashing — that is bad for the environment and consumers, because of businesses doing the greenwashing.
Zsidisin GA, Siferd SP. 2001. Environmental purchasing: a framework for theory development. European Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management 7(1): 61–73.
Reed, B. (2011). The Business of Social Responsibility. Retrieved from Dollars and Sense Real World Economics: http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/1998/0598reed.html
European Commission: 2001, Green Paper Promoting aEuropean Framework for Corporate Social Responsibility C OM(2001) 366 (Commission of the European Communities, Brussels). Retrieved from http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2001/com2001_0366en01.pdf
Fourthly, Ecover should offer more education and information with long-term objectives to facilitate and promote new values and behaviours. Finally, Ecover should encourage environmentalists to recommend its products. 9.Appendix Appendix 1:. Survey of consumer attitudes. Australia Canada Germany Italy Japan Holland Spain Switzerland Pay 10-15% more for green products 69 72 68 79 42 87 85 80.
While the concept of an individual having responsibility is commonly recognized, modern views have lead to the emerging issue of corporate responsibility. Business Directory.com defines corporate social responsibility as, “A company’s sense of responsibility towards the community and environment (both ecological and social) in which it operates. Companies express this citizenship (1) through their waste and pollution reduction processes, (2) by contributing educational and social programs, and (3) by earning adequate returns on the employed resources.” But such a concept has been much disputed since at least the 1970’s.
In order to understand the effects and consequences of Greenwashing are, a working definition must be established. According to Hoyer, Greenwashing is defined as the misleading use of environmental claims for marketing purposes (2013). An example would be claiming a product is organic when in fact there is no proof of that claim. Greenwashing is deceptive and leads to distrust if a company is caught engaging in deceptive tactics. A problem lies in how new environmentally centered marketing is compared to other aspects of marketing. Few laws have been passed to regulate claims companies make regarding the environment.