A recent article in the UK’s Climate Change newsletter caught my eye when the headlines read, “Greenwashers Smarten Up.” So much has been covered on the topic of greenwashing that I wondered what would come next.

The article reinforced the fact that European regulations are tough and getting tougher with Europe now requiring advertisers and marketers to adhere to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations Guidelines that you can access by clicking here:

http://www.cipr.co.uk/environmentalcomms/pdfs/CIPR_Environmental_Sustainability_Guidelines.pdf

There are also ISO10421 for guidelines as well. Here is the link to their guide,

http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=23146

With all of these regulations and guidelines on green, it makes quite a few companies nervous to make a move. What you basically need to know is how to adhere to what you can and cannot say. I come back to the same statement I always make, “be comfortable where you are and where you are going.”

Why do I say this?

In my last blog post, I talked about UK’s environmental regulations for environmental claims made in advertising and marketing. I know it is the topic of conversation not just in Europe, but also in the US and other parts of the world. The U.S., although, reviewing the regulations, have not cracked down as hard on violators as in Europe, who is fining companies and organizations that they feel are greenwashing. I talked how to find out about some of the newer regulations. I now want to talk about some other interesting tidbits that I found in the article in the Climate Change’s newsletter. So much of what they said applies to the U.S. as well.

Here is what the author said as quoted in her article and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations Guide:

"Claims should always avoid the vague use of terms such as ‘green’, ‘non-polluting’... they should avoid linking vague descriptions, such as ‘friendly’ or ‘kind’, with words like ‘earth’, ‘nature’, ‘environment’, ‘eco’ and ‘ozone,’” the CIPR advice says. CSR Europe’s guidelines concur."

I also recommend that words such as “natural,” “sustainable,” and “green” be avoided unless explicit information is supplied as to what you mean by using these terms. They are getting too overused and just not understood. Eco-friendly is another one that really means nothing since it is being applied to any and everything under the sun whether it is environmentally sound or not.

As I write this post, this week was the launch of the investor advocacy network, which promoted an end to forced child labor in its cotton harvest. Reportedly, Uzebekistan used hundreds of thousands of children, ages 10-15, for manual labor. This group of socially conscious shareholders, pension funds and human rights advocates banded together to push the Uzbek government to enforce International Labor Organization child labor conventions, in an news release distributed by Corporate Responsibility Wire.

Why am I mentioning this in my green marketing blog?

Because this same thing can happen to any country, company and brand that does not take the responsibility for actions that others do not deem as socially responsible. This not the first time this has happened and it will not be the last.

Unfortunately, we've seen the same actions happening with false environmental claims. Sooner or later, people will have to explain their actions and this will result in not only bad press, but also lost integrity and even customers. When the word gets out that a company or brand or even a country, tried to promote something as environmentally sound when it was not, consumer loyalty will be lost.

Watchdog groups continue to grow to ensure we are responsible.

In my last blog post I talked about creating green initiatives with greater depth. The reason I wrote about this is due to my seeing so many media companies creating programs that I feel are not the most responsible. Programs that offer to deliver “empowering green claims” to which companies can attach themselves and their brands. Unfortunately, this opens up most any company to being greenwashed, especially when consumers expect that company and brand to best represent that green claim. It can quickly destroy the integrity of any company almost overnight with prospects, customers and the press. I have seen it happen, especially in the case of the press.

This is why I started working with media companies to create deeper, green programs that allowed them to not only attract greener consumers naturally by the type of content, but also attract the right advertisers that really practiced what they preached in regard to their environmentally friendly efforts.

The Green Brigade, a public radio website, reviewed and selected the 2008 greenwashers of the year. I’d like to recap it with my comments, of course.

Fiji, the bottled water company, was listed at the top, although, there is no rhyme or reason for this according to the review. Here is why Fiji is on their list, according to the website. Fiji’s numbers in one year:

5,500 miles per trip from Fiji to Los Angeles (the closest Fiji Water destination point in the US)

• 46 million gallons of fossil fuel

• 1.3 billion gallons of water

• 216,000,000 lbs of greenhouse gases

Their bottles are made from PET plastic with a 12% recycling rate in the US. These water bottles are often refilled by consumers releasing the chemical DEHA, considered to be a carcinogen.

Keeping all of this in mind, Fiji just release its green campagin and launched its fijigreen.com website indicating “every last drop is green.” This is a pretty bold and far reaching claim. The company has made a significant effort toward reducing their carbon footprint and is committed to become carbon negative by 2010 by:

• Reducing its packaging by 20% and increasing recycled content—keep-in-mind that PET can only be recycled in limited areas.

In My last blog post, I wrote about the 2008 Greenwashers List. I am continuing my review of this list in this post and will probably do so in my next post as well. I think that greenwashing is such an issue and companies still need to do more due diligence in developing the right green positioning that can differentiate them, but not greenwash.

In the list, The big three CEOS of the automobile industry were mentioned. They received press for now driving their hybrids to DC, versus taking private jets. I realize that if someone did the calculations, it would have been better to carpool or fly on a commercial plane, but obviously, they are still learning.

I credit them for at least taking the step in the right direction.I think they are just trying to hang on at this point, though, I think they need to think twice and analyze their overall carbon footprint for business travel in the future. Maybe they need to create a position for sustainable business travel. In these large corporations, that would be a full time job.

Clean coal was also on the list. Yes, I do agree with the review that the words “clean” and “coal” put together is an oxymoron, since burning coal is one of the leading sources of global warming emissions.

I’m continuing the discussion on the greenwashers of 2008 with a look at the last four on the list. If you missed the start of this discussion, click here.

Shell is one Greenwash Brigade’s list of greenwashers and I do agree with this one. I’ve mentioned Shell numerous times in my newsletter, click here to sign up for my newsletter and read the lastest posts, .

Shell has stretched their green claims. Here is a recap of what I said in my September 2008 newsletter, “the UK Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint against Shell for the second time for a misleading advertisement that implied Shell’s operations in Canadian oil sands were sustainable. Last year, one of the corporations’ ads was censured for a claim that the company used the CO2 from its operations to grow flowers, according to a recent article in Climate Change’s newsletter.” Just click the link above to subscribe and you’ll have access to the archive from this article.

The computer industry, which I commented on in a previous post, was mentioned on the list of 2008 greenwashers. The article indicated:

I often run across new companies that do not really understand the concept of sustainability and green, yet understand enough that they know it is important. They know that they want to embrace it, yet they do not really understand what it means to be green. I ran across one such company the other day who had the best intentions, but needs to better understand the concept of green before they are accused of greenwashing.

I learned of a new doctors office that was more holistically-minded and green. They were marketing these two positioning lines on their website. It was quite attractive to many consumers in a state that did not have many holistically-minded doctors and really no green medical offices such as this. When I checked out the practice, I noticed that although they had a handful of green features, there were many other things they did not embrace. They mentioned being holistic and having green furniture and carpeting, plus no VOC paint, yet when you went into the bathroom, the soap, sprays, etc. were all chemicals. There was definitely a disconnect of what being green really meant. They went so far as to invest in some green furniture and carpeting, etc., yet the simple things such as soap and cleaners were forgotten and not understood, yet they professed being totally green.

This particular business had the best intentions just as anyone else does, they just didn’t understand the concept of what green meant. They didn’t understand that eliminating chemicals was a huge component of the equation.

Could they be greenwashed?

Has the FTC had it with greenwashing? You might think so since they recently charged Kmart Corp., Tender Corp., and Dyna-E International with making false and unsubstantiated claims that their paper products were “biodegradable.”

If you read some of my previous blog posts, I indicated that I thought we were getting closer to fining companies for false green claims as they do in Europe.

Kmart and Tender have agreed to settle the cases against them; the case against Dyna-E will be litigated. The testimony states that with the recent growth in “green” advertising and product lines, the agency will continue its efforts to ensure that environmental marketing is truthful, substantiated, and not confusing to consumers.

This basically means, get your facts straight and make sure you are truly green before you put it out there for the world to see.

Here is the story on the above retailers and why they were charged:

We are continuing our discussion on the FTC cracking down on false green claims that Kmart Corp., Tender Corp., and Dyna-E International made claiming their products were biodegradable.

It really was a matter of time before the FTC starting cracking down. I figured it was around the corner. What is important to know is that the FTC publishes Green Guides to help marketers avoid making false or misleading green claims by explaining how consumers understand commonly used terms, such as “biodegradable” and “recyclable,” and by describing the basic elements needed to substantiate those claims.

I posted the other day on Twitter (Twitter name:colechan), if a mayor is green yet--most of the city isn't does that equal a mayor who doesn't know how to communicate green or a city that doesn't know how to follow?

What do you think?

I am perplexed when I see this. If you read my last post you’ll notice I really like to get a pulse of a city by seeing and hearing what is happening from the people and events. I’ve seen on more than one occasion a mayor who is a strong shade of green, greening buildings for the state, yet the rest of the city is not completely buying in.

So, how does this happen and how do you prevent it from happening?

In my last blog post, we discussed a city’s sustainability responsibility. We’ll be continuing this discussion in this blog post.

In indicated in my last blog post that a women said she didn’t recycle because she didn’t believe it would help and what was the point.

I’ve seen the same thing happen in companies where they institute a recycling program, people start recycling then one person ends up dumping the recycled products into a dumpster. This kills the credibility of the program and instills distrust immediately—something hard to get back.

When a city rolls out a program, communicate on a basic level would make sense, here is what I mean:

1. Explain the benefit of recycling and the downside of not recycling – I explained to this lady that people do not understand that when a landfill is full, we will need to transport trash, do you think transporting trash would diminish the air quality? We could end up in a similar situation as China because our air quality is so bad.

2. Show what’s in it for them – Why should they do it? Everyone has a different motive. Conventionals who are driven by more municipal behavior will actively engage in recycling, but they are only a little under 30% of the population. What about everyone else? For a drifter to relate, you have to show them how it affects them personally. Each groups relates very differently to these types of initiatives and are motivated in different manners.

Cleveland, Ohio is definitely a hub for manufacturers both large and small. On September 10th, I had the opportunity to interact with these manufacturers while sitting on a panel of other green experts specializing in sustainable operations, facilities and so forth. My area, of course, was on the trends and marketing.

There were about 90 manufacturers in attendance. I thought it was a respectable number considering it was a recession and green may have not been at the top of their business agenda. Nevertheless, they were attendance and asking some good questions of the panel.

In my last post, I talked about the Crain’s ecoSMART manufacturing panel I sat on in Cleveland that was sponsored by MAGNET.

If you missed my last post, click here.

Here is the question I asked at the end of my post. I am sure you are wanting to know the answers I didn’t have time to share, right?

Why pursue sustainability, or Eco-Smart Manufacturing, during a downturn? Is this a nice to have but not a need to have?

a. Trust is at an all-time low. Transparency is the only answer.

b. Consumers are still spending the dollars with greener products more – Deloitte did a retail strategy as well as others.

c. Green consumers will spend 20% more. Targeting them allows you to tap into the $209 billion global marketplace and $545 billion international marketplace of goods and services.

My company often gets asked to come in and wave our magic wand to tell someone they are green or sustainable enough to print their brochure talking about it. I say this tongue and cheek because we were asked not that long ago to do this.

A company wanted to produce a brochure stating how green their products were. They wanted my company to come in and do a quick little assessment and tell them they were green enough to produce this brochure. The challenge was that they had never had any type of sustainability platform, no guiding principles, no audit on energy usage, etc., etc. Knowing this, I knew in order to be able to accomplish what they wanted, my assessment had to be even more in-depth than I normally did so that I would prevent the company and really my company (oh yes, consulting firms and agencies can be greenwashed as well) as well from being greenwashed.

I speak to both national and international audiences on topics of creating authentic green value, greenwashing, green marketing, and trends.

I always customize my speeches to my audience leaving them with ideas they can implement right away. I recently decided to include information about ways to know if something is truly green or if it is greenwashing. Considering the U.S. FTC already have charged three companies 4 months ago with false green claims, I figured knowing how to spot greenwashing would be important.

I have included the list below that I have put together and pulled from a couple of sources on the Internet:

-Follow the money and paper trail

Companies donate to political parties, think tanks, etc. Few disclose this in annual report – who donating to. Ask about all donations.

Ask about submissions made by company and lobbying issues you are interested in. Make sure on right side. Most companies and association will make submissions to government and other inquiries on issues of importance. These are often posted to website. Also send letter to politicians and government agencies—accessed by Freedom of Information Act.

-Find out associations to which they belong

Some companies may talk about their environmental policy and performance, but hide their anti-environmentalism behind banner of industry association to which they belong. See which associations they belong to and check and see their policies.

We;ll continue this discussion in my next blog post.

Colette Chandler

Helping You Understand and Profit from Consumer Health and Green Trends