Is “Greenwashing” Dead?

Often, salespeople will only provide standard marketing materials or point to their Web site as a source of their information, which won’t have any readily available documentation to back up their claims.

Companies that are weakening the green brand with false claims, self certification and hype are doing a disservice to every firm that's trying to do the right thing.

IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT THAT YOU'RE TRANSPORTED TO A PARALLEL UNIVERSE where "good, clean living" is seen as the best way to save the planet from cultural anarchy. You're not a big believer. In fact, you’re about to get remarried for the third time. But there’s a snag: Your wife’s family insists that only someone “pure of heart” may marry their daughter. They ask that you be tested and certified by an uninterested party on issues of honesty, financial management and piety. But instead, you decide to write your own test, and have one of your employees tally your score. Not surprisingly, you pass with flying colors. In fact, you're recommended as a contestant for the popular "Who's the Cleanest of Them All" game show.

A study of 30,000 consumers finds that their perceptions of which companies have the best environmental processes often have nothing to do with reality--and everything to do with clever marketing.

WHEN NEW SCIENTIST asked consumers to rate the environmental efforts of companies in various industries, they expected some gap between perception and reality. But some of the gaps turned out to more like chasms. To establish the size of those chasms, the researchers compared consumer attitudes with a database from Trucost.com, ranking the environmental attributes of hundreds of

companies (full methodology is HERE.) When we checked on the Trucost site, it appears that Newsweek is now selling those results as an expensive database.

THE BUZZ OF THE U.S. GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL's annual conference, Greenbuild, has come and gone once again, and after a successful event in Phoenix last week, I'm happy to report that the conversation about sustainable development is clearly evolving. The conference was well attended and upbeat—building professionals and manufacturers alike seemed optimistic about their green prospects for 2010.

Like at most shows, there were new product launches and catchy marketing campaigns, but what particularly caught my attention was the depth of the information that was presented. People weren't asking basic questions about green building like they used to. Instead, they were talking about lessons learned from green buildings they have designed and constructed; integrated systems that optimize home performance; and advanced technologies like smart grid appliances and energy monitoring systems. They weren't searching for a justification for building green—they were looking for ways to strengthen their competitive advantage through sustainability.