Essay About Greenwash

assuage any guilt they might feel about consuming mass quantities of unnecessary, disposable goods by dutifully tossing these items into their recycling bins and hauling them out to the curb each week”. (Westervelt, Amy. "Can Recycling Be Bad for the Environment?" Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 25 Apr. 2012. Web. 5 Dec. 2015). So why is the reason that companies are starting to “Go Green”? Its clearly obvious that the change in America from an industrial country to a environmental country has taught big business how to market environmentalism in mass quantities of their product. The strategy of the consumption-environment mindset are increasing rapidly. If this trend of buying without thinking does not slow down, with problems like not shifting priority from consumption to being environmentally aware, things will certainly worsen. On the topic of green marketing, people often see that green marketing refers to the advertising of objects or products with environmental characteristics to them (Like the Nestle bottle, for example). Terms like “Environmentally Friendly”, “Refillable”, and “Recyclable”, are some of the things people associate with green marketing. In reality

Environmental scanning can be viewed as a way of acquiring information about outside events that can aid organizations in first identifying potential trends, then interpreting them

Oil covered everything: beaches, animals, plants, bottoms of boats. Approximately 205.8 million gallons of oil leaked into the ocean and toward the Louisiana shoreline. To put the amount in perspective, that oil could be used to drive a Toyota Prius around the earth 184,181 times (Repanich). All of this pollution and destruction because of one singular company: British Petroleum. Needless to say, the image of BP was tarnished because of this. What can a company do to come back from such a serious setback? This was the question that was faced by the company in 2010 (when the spill occurred), and is still being wrestled with today. By analyzing BP’s “Commitment to the Gulf” ad campaign, the brand’s desired identity is made very apparent. When it comes to oil, nearly all consumers are involved. However, BP does take specific steps in order to narrow down a target audience when it comes to advertising its product. Despite the hardships faced by BP stemming from the spill, consumers still have an addiction to oil. BP, the fourth largest oil company in the world (“Biggest Oil”), has such a firm hold on consumer society that it is a necessity in today’s consumer landscape. By pushing the brand’s identity to its target audience, BP used branding to overcome a severe controversy and rebuild the image it hoped to convey to consumers.

Corporate reconstruction of green – in the 1990’s we saw the reconstruction of the term “green” by corporations as they flooded the airwaves

The rise of green products and the want of consumers to become more environmentally friendly has been increasing. In 10 Green Marketing Milestones, the reading mentioned how the “rise of the Toyota Prius: It may not have saved the world, but at 1 million cumulative vehicle sales the Prius became the predominant fuel-efficient hybrid vehicle” (Neff 2). This is an example of how companies are actually wanting to go green in order to make more profit and rise above their competitors. Going off the Prius example, it was also mentioned how Hummer cars, which use an excess amount of fuel, sales have plummeted. This was because this model no longer appealed to the consumers and General Motor’s had to discontinue the model and even went bankrupt. This sale tactic works and is so successful because the consumer’s mindset have evolved to seek things that are better for the environment. Many would prefer Toyota over General Motor because of their company’s reputation with being green. Although this might not work for all companies, but for some, they have become more successful than their competitors by going green and so, convincing more and more to

The research Clorox performed found that 53% percent of consumers are looking to purchase greener products in the coming year. The Burt's Bee social responsibility strategies created a positive company image. They award compensation based on energy conservation, and they strive to reduce their carbon footprint for the greater good. As competition has accelerated their entry into the market by purchasing green companies the positive social image becomes a greater concern. Consumers are inclined to pay a higher cost for green products that in turn produce greater profits.

Likewise, the green energy hoax could be due to companies wanting to take advantage of consumers by informing them of products that will help promote change to the environment when in actuality their claims are not living up to the product offered is capable of doing. However, many want to imply that their products serve a purpose to help the environment when they are actually hurting consumers pockets and causing more anxiety with the products that should be ensuring safety, benefit, and

The modern advertisements for the companies, that pollutes the ecosystem, are created to greenwash the public images for the organization. Most of the big manufactures spends much bigger amount of money and time on its commercials to pretend to be clean or green other than actually developing the business to minimize the environmental imapct. In 2010, one of the popular gasoline company Chevron launched a campaign: 'We Agree," that represents that Chevron agrees and cares about the pollutions around the world. One of the images, that Chevron used, states "Oil Comapnies Should Fix The Problems They Create" with a picture of nature filled with the sludge from the gas companies and there is "We Agree" printed under the statement. This advertising angered some audience because many people believed that the Chevron was only pretending to care and the people changed the slogan to "Oil Comapnies Stop Pretending They Care," and made a "Chevwrong" nickname. For another example, there are many bottled water companies that produce a large amount of the plastic bottles.

Sustainability has achieved a more ecological tone in the past few decades in terms of a business model, but it originally derives from the concept that a business is successful due to the interconnected areas of economics, culture and ecology. Sustainability is now becoming a somewhat fad and thus it is understandable that it could be misconstrued by some as a form of “greenwashing”. Greenwashing is the idea that a company markets their “green” or environmentally friendly changes in policy and values, despite no actual concrete changes in these areas, for example some argue that Fiji Water greenwasher in terms of their marketing as an environmentally friendly water company despite their little effort to actually go carbon-neutral. Many companies are seeing the

Meanwhile, leading officials and shareholders have been attempting to push against Exxon’s misleading statements, and two Harvard researchers have recently proven that Exxon was deliberately attempting to deceive the public with the wording of their advertising and public statements. They say that while Exxon Mobil has attempted to frame itself in a positive light by contributing to climate change research, they are ultimately causing the worst kind of damage by continuing to publicly promote unscientific thinking which could negatively sway future policy making in the United States and other countries. The beliefs held by the people working against Exxon Mobil are essentially environmentalist, if more about wise use than deep ecology- they believe that the public, in particular shareholders, have a right to know about the ethics of what they might be investing in so they might choose more environmentally sound options when it’s logical and beneficial both for themselves and the

In the article “Are You Being Green Washed?” Robbins (2008) states the image of “greenwashing” which is that numerous number of companies promote their services and their products as environmentally friendly but in reality it is harmful for the environment. The author illustrates that by giving some example of companies that claim they are eco- friendly such as Palm oil and Rayon. He states the impacts of such claim on the environment and consumers in some ways. However, in order to protect the environment form the negative impacts of globalization and consumerism, government and individual must make a joint effort by enact laws and educate people and companies about the impacts of such problem.

Consumerism often causes people to identify with a product or brand on a personal level. Certain products have come to represent different levels of society, with swankier products like muscle cars indicating high class and such products as generic “store brand” shampoo indicating low class. People feel that they have relationships with their favorite brands and products and define themselves by what they buy and own. The mass production of cheap products uses precious fossil fuels at an alarming rate. This has an obvious negative impact on the environment.

The economy today runs on an antiquated ritual of exploiting, plundering, devastation, and manipulation of land for material wealth, profiting the wealthy and condemning the poor. This mindset is no more sophisticated than feudalism, a system so bad it had to be outlawed along with witchcraft. The idea that exploitation of land is justified has brought plastics to the ocean and leveled rainforests. Large corporations have grown larger by manufacturing and production, depleting the planet’s resources in the process. Now, companies must make a combined effort to put the environment first, before profit. Because of their harmful practices, consumers have the right to know where products come from, how they’re made, and the impact on the environment. Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the large corporations to change their harmful practices, to make strides towards ending climate change and use clean, sustainable methods.

In this day and age companies have mastered the technique of misleading customers by fabricating false claims about a green product or service that they swear to provide. This insincere display of information is called ‘Greenwashing’, a spin-off of ‘Whitewashing’. Greenwashing could be said to be a global phenomenon and it’s commonly seen in advertisements, on products packing, websites, emails, speeches, and videos (just to name a few). Greenwashing is a thought out process, a planned and typically well designed campaign. There is a wide range of reasons why companies are eager to partake in greenwashing; divert attention for regulatory change, to persuade critics or consumers, expand the company's

One major problem as far as companies using green marketing and why it isn’t working is that the relatively vague definition of green marketing leaves a lot of room for loopholes. Green marketing, by simply being defined as “the marketing of products that are assumed to be environmentally safe,” allows companies to take advantage of this idea even if their products are not the best example of green ones (McClendon 1). Most companies also don’t practice what they preach in such