The Importance Of Greenwashing As A Marketing Strategy

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

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

This study will not be anonymous as it requires us to collect names for the purpose of completing this research. For the purpose of this study, information will remain confidential. To ensure confidentiality, Non-involving persons or agencies will not have access to information collected to ensure confidentiality.

As more and more people are aware of environmental problems which our human being are facing, most people nowadays do shopping with some degree of morality in mind, taking social or environmental issues into consideration as they select from a range of product or services. Therefore, the concept of

*For the purpose of this assignment and to keep the privacy of participates, the interviewee will be addressed as such, or as Person A.

As we have seen an increase in awareness around sustainability and climate change, with the help of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth documentary in 2006, we see organizations moving towards mitigating the effects of climate change in various ways (Al Gore, n.d). As this corporate social responsibility has become more prevalent, organizations are now pushing their green agenda by publishing sustainability reports, doing mass marketing and implementing sustainable business practices to portray the image that they too are working towards protecting the earth’s natural environment all the while focusing on their underlying goal of selling their products and

I believe there could be some accuracy in his claims because some companies do imply that green energy could be a scam just to get others to agree with their efforts. Furthermore, a lot of greenwashing takes place which can cause for even more concern.

The research investigates information from the public and comes up with favorable conclusions that can be used to increase knowledge. Some of the data gathered from the public can be sensitive information that may interfere with the privacy of the subject or put the subject at risk. Some of the dangers that may affect the participant are physical danger or emotional torment. It is thus important to protect the privacy and integrity of the people being interviewed to ensure that their contribution does not affect them. Since research is a continuous process. It is important to ensure that the process of research is effective. Interviewed individuals need to feel safe to produce credible information that will enable the researcher to provide credible information to the public. Apart from providing credible information, participation in a research can be as part of an experiment that requires subjects to participate (Miller & Yang, 2007).

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

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.

The researcher asked participants to come to a private office to complete a semi-structured interview with the researcher. The interview guide approved by the IRB and used throughout all the interviews included the following questions:

In the reading “A Faint Green Sell: Advertising and the Natural World” by Corbett mentioned that companies use nature to appeal to everyone to buy their products. More and more company are being eco friendly in able to sell more products. They do this in able to appeal to customer thus present them in a positive way. For instance, most advertisement for the car brand Subaru most of their commercial is something to do with nature. It uses different scenario how it can go very well with nature. For instance, one commercial, for the Subaru was a couple deciding whether they should go shopping or explore the wilderness. As expected they chose to enjoy nature. This method convinces customers that this car brand will go along with nature. Subaru

Social: Deceiving the public like Volkswagen (VW) did not only diminishes the company’s reputation, but also public trust in the business, and therefore increases consumers’ belief in ‘greenwashing’ or ‘greenfrauding’ (3p Contributor, 2016). As a result, consumers will start supporting a more ‘trustworthy’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ car manufacturers.

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