Earth Day swamped with Greenwash accusations – again!

Earth Day: can we see past the greenwash?

As the 38th Earth Day kicked off this week, cries of ‘greenwash’ were aimed at participating multinationals.

With US-based stores like Walmart, Banana Republic and Macys offering a range of ‘green’ drives and promotions, including donating money to national parks and giving away reusable bags, commentators repeated accusations that the global day has become a way for big companies to generate green marketing points.

Since Earth Day began in 1970, companies have hopped on board to benefit from the name. According to greenwash monitor Corpwatch, this peaked in 1990, when ‘Earth Day 20’ saw a flurry of eco claims being made by global companies.

“It was during that year of eco-hoopla that ‘corporate environmentalism’ came into its own in the US,” states Corpwatch’s Joshua Karliner. “ The transnationals came to recognize that increasing numbers of consumers wanted to buy green products. In fact, in the early 1990s, one poll found that 77 per cent of Americans said that a corporation's environmental reputation affected what they bought.”

Since 1990, green marketing has become even more developed, and more clever. Still, multinationals – or at least some of them - have shown a greater willingness to genuinely pursuing a sustainable agenda. How to tell the real commitment apart from the greenwashers? That’s the challenge. Read Michael Solomon’s latest column to see how big that challenge is!

As Earth Day comes and goes, greenwashing will remain with us. In the wrong hands, being sustainable is a marketing ploy like any other. In the right hands, it can make a real difference, even from the companies we least expect. Again – consumers can make a difference, so keep applying your pressure!