Greenpeace Marks Earth Day '08 With New Website Exposing Corporate ‘Greenwash’ Claims
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 22, 2008
12:38 PM
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CONTACT: Greenpeace
Jane Kochersperger, Media Officer, 202-319-2493 direct; 202-680-3798 cell
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Greenpeace Marks Earth Day '08 With New Website Exposing Corporate ‘Greenwash’ Claims
StopGreenwash.org Challenges Advertising Claims on Global Warming Made by Nuclear, Coal and Auto Industries
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WASHINGTON, DC - April 22 - Greenpeace, with a 36-year history of monitoring corporate malfeasance, confronting polluters, and stopping environmental misdeeds, marked Earth Day 2008 with the launch of project StopGreenwash.org to expose deceptive corporate environmental claims known as ‘greenwashing.’
"Consumers are being misled, corporations are preying upon the public's good will and lawmakers are being distracted with marketing pitches that overstate concrete action and results,” Greenpeace Research Director Kert Davies said. "This epidemic of greenwashing must stop and companies must adopt genuine green solutions to protect the environment.”
With efforts to address global warming and energy security more urgent than ever, StopGreenwash.org begins with three investigations profiling the energy industry's use of misleading environmental claims:
America's Power Clean Coal campaign - This $40 million dollar campaign funded by the coal and electricity industries promotes coal as America's solution to energy independence and portrays coal-fired electricity as a clean source of power. The reality is that coal is the largest source of global warming pollution. This campaign serves as a front group for an industry aiming to greenwash its dirty coal plants and build more coal-fired plants.
General Motors' “Gas-Friendly to Gas-Free”- This ad campaign attempts to reframe GM as an environmentally responsible and progressive company. However, despite GM's green rhetoric, the company is still the leading producer of gas-guzzlers and works behind the scenes to undermine fuel economy and emission standards.
Greenwashing Nuclear Power - Public relations troubles are nothing new for the nuclear industry. For more than half a century, this industry has attempted to deflect attention away from the dirty and dangerous downsides of nuclear power. Now, riding the threat of global warming, the nuclear industry has launched a renewed PR effort to green its image.
The most common form of greenwashing is advertising and branding of products, but it also can involve the gamut of public relations tools, from the formation of front groups to the sponsorship of ‘green’ events. Unlike some analyses of greenwashing that focus on specific consumer products, Greenpeace has established four specific criteria to evaluate core business and marketing practices on green claims.
Greenpeace's Greenwash Criteria
Ad Bluster - Using targeted advertising or public relations campaigns to exaggerate an environmental achievement to divert attention from environmental problems or spending more money advertising an environmental achievement than actually doing it.
Dirty Business - Touting an environmental program or product while the corporation's product or core business is inherently polluting or unsustainable.
Political Spin – Advertising, speaking about or using front groups to tout corporate ‘green’ commitments while lobbying against environmental laws and regulations.
It's the Law, Stupid - Advertising or branding a product with claims about environmental achievements that are already mandated by law.
Greenpeace coined the term `greenwashing' in 1990, as the use of misleading green public relations grew with increasing scrutiny of corporations around the issues of rainforest destruction, depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, and the illegal dumping of toxic waste.
Through the StopGreenwash.org project, Greenpeace will spotlight and confront deceptive greenwashing campaigns, engage companies in debate, and give consumers, activists and policy makers the information they need to confront corporate deception. Upcoming investigations will explore the oil, auto, chemical and food industries, examine electric utilities and delve deeper into the nuclear industry.
The website will allow users to submit examples of greenwashing such as videos of TV ads and scans of print ads to form the first available online library of greenwashing. Users will rate these ads, which will be viewable on the site. There also will be a discussion board, ways to take action online to target companies to eliminate their greenwashing behavior, materials on the history of greenwashing and links to key web resources and recent news items on the subject.
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