We Should Be Concerned About Greenwashing In The Automotive Industry

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

My book was called Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines by Paul Fleischman. I learned many things from this book, one of them being that companies use materials to make their products that are detrimental to the environment, and harmful to the workers or animals involved in making the product. These corporations are able to get away with it because they have a lot of money, and that means that they can pay people to release propaganda saying that their product is not harmful to anything, and advertisements saying that the people who are speaking out against their product are radical environmentalists. They can also create fake environmental groups that supposedly support the company's product. They can also influence politicians

A strong ecological awareness may threaten Ford Motor Company, because if Ford cannot offer more environmentally friendly products to meet consumers’ demands/needs than their competitors, there is a possibility that consumers might consider switching to a competitor’s product.

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

What does the earth mean to the human race, what do we owe to the world? The food crisis in America is an even balance of 1 billion hungry and 1 billion obese. This means somewhere along the lines we something is going very wrong. We are being mislead and told that we are going green. Is America really going green? Or is it being fed propaganda to hide the true damage of the process of making are organic so-called natural products?

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

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

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.

Americans are now more concerned with creating a better environment to live in. The production of vehicles across the globe emits harmful gases in the environment. In addition to the previous, gasoline driven vehicles emits carbon dioxide into the air, which further destroys the ozone layer. However, the car industry as a whole has a unique classification system for consumers. Each car manufacturer has a distinct classification for each vehicle made for consumers that depends on the consumer lifestyle. Cars are now marketed to consumers based on social status, income levels, and other factors. One prime example is how Tesla marketed the Roadster model to luxury sports car

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

As the United States unite in the global effort to monitor the use and waste of energy, fuel efficient or hybrid cars such as the Toyota Prius has dominated the market over the SUV’s who once adored every American driveway. With much doubt, in 2004, the Prius has become the leading selling vehicle in America. The sleek design has caught the eye and pockets of many Americans who prefer the “gas sipper” over the “gas guzzler.” (Kotler & Armstrong, Principles of Marketing, 2010)

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