greenwash for slideshare
TRANSCRIPT
Everyone wants to be environmentally friendly,
but who actually is?
GREENWASHING
“disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible
public image”
More than 75% of the public will switch to a brand associated with the environment when
price and quality are equal
-The 1997 Roper Green Gauge Reports
History of Greenwashing
1980 1990 2000 2010
The 1st Earth Day (April 22) was held, encouraging industries to promote environmental activities
1992: The Federal Trade Commission created the “Green Guidelines”, to define terms used in environmental marketing. The guides were revised again in 1996 and 1998.
1999:Greenwash became a word in the Oxford English Dictionary
1970
From 1990-2009:44 FTC Environmental cases of Greenwashing
• Qualifications and Disclosures
• Distinction between benefits of product, package, and service
• Overstatement of environmental attribute
• Comparative claims
• Environmentally friendly• Degradable• Compostable• Recyclable• Recycled content• Source reduction• Refillable• Ozone safe/ozone friendly
Online Survey
Percentage of investments expended
ASA
Fiji
Rebranding
Emissions
Carbon Offset
Biodegradable
SurveySurvey AgencyAgency ActionAction FirmsFirms
Remove Statement
Class Action
Charge Compliance
Protest Boycott
FTC
Consumers
Fiji
• Marketing Firms– The Green Guides are a starting point, but very vague
• Kmart American Fare Paper Plates
– “The lack of specific rules for how companies should make environmental claims shows how complicated some of these issues can be. There’s very, very little area in which there's a lot of concrete guidance”• Lew Rose, Advertising and Marketing Attorney with Kelley Drye &
Warren
The Opposition
Recommendations
Consumers, Company’s, and the FTC agrees-There needs to be concrete guides to
Green Marketing
The Key is not relaxed rules or even enforceable regulations……
Recommendations
The Key is: Education
Currently the FTC only distributes information to consumers and firms
through three pamphlets
ImplementationCrawler
Consumers
CorporationsEnviro Marketing Firms
Consumers
coordinate
coordinate
Educate
Enforce
FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz quoted ‘noted environmentalist’ Kermit the
Frog stating, “It’s not easy being green, but these Guides will
hopefully make it easier.”