After all the hugging and smooching of big corporations on Gristmill today, I thought I'd try to recapture our righteous insurgent credibility by linking to some primo corporation bashing, in the form of GreenLife's just-released list of America's Ten Worst Greenwashers.
But after reading it, I'm afraid I just can't sign on. I may have to go back to being a Running Dog Whore for The Man.
I felt a sense of disquiet as I read through the list, and the reason why is captured perfectly in the "notes on methodology":
As its title implies, this report does not account for all greenwashers, only the worst. The companies profiled herein were selected due to the discrepancies between their environmental rhetoric and the reality of their environmental performance. By these criteria, some environmental laggards did not make the list because, for lack of interest or fear of backlash, they do not bother with greenwash. On the other side of the coin, some leaders were chosen because, though in reality their environmental performance far outpaced that of their competitors, their rhetoric was still more extreme.
So, in other words, corporations that don't give a damn about the environment at all are specifically exempted from criticism -- exempted, in fact, by virtue of not giving a damn. Even corporations that give X amount of a damn, but talk as if they give X+1 amount of a damn, come under fire.
This is, in short, equivalent to the ubiquitous charge of hypocrisy -- a charge that, while easy and fun to make, does little to advance substantive discussion on matters of import.
Ideal, from my perspective, would be for a corporation to make genuine commitments to environmental stewardship and to issue only those public statements that are factually accurate in regard to those commitments. I also want a pony and an ice cream cone.
But I don't live in a perfect world. The world I live in is characterized by some pretty deep structural incentives for corporations to place short-term profit over sustainability. The countervailing pressures -- from government regulation, advocacy and shareholder groups, and the public at large -- are tenuous, and the first of the three is under constant attack.
What we need is a cultural environment in which environmental stewardship is the norm, in which it is assumed that corporations do what they can for sustainability. A good way to create that environment is to increase, not decrease, the amount of green talk from corporate PR departments. Let 'em all start talking about it. Make not talking about it seem strange and conspicuous. The more talk there is about it, the higher the chances that some percentage of them are going to take it seriously. Despite their reputation in lefty circles as ruthless automata, corporations, and the people that run them, are subject to social and peer pressure.
As I've said before, what lists like this -- and, I fear, the green establishment generally -- do is create a perverse disincentive for corporations to pay any heed at all to sustainability. The minute they pop up on greenies' radars, they come in for this kind of bashing about hypocrisy. The bashing is an easy route to some publicity, but it doesn't do much good. I can't imagine that any of these corporations are going to read this kind of stuff and feel inspired to do better.
No, we should be welcoming the gestures -- the sincere ones, the slightly-exaggerated ones, even the verging-on-empty ones -- and saying, "yes, good work, you're getting the idea ... now here's how to do it a little better. Here's the next step." We should be a partner, a cheerleader. We're trying to create an atmosphere where corporations benefit from dipping their toes in the sweet, clear pool of sustainability.
Aren't we?
Comments
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chris@organicmatter Posted 10:16 am
14 Apr 2005
Absolutely
After writing about Wal-Mart's recent donation to preserve land equal to their literal footprint, I was skeptical for obvious reasons - the donation was a drop in the bucket, and I couldn't help the feeling that something fishy was going on. At the same time, for all their [many many many] faults, when these corporate giants do something right, they ought to hear something positive from the environmentally minded community about their actions.
I doubt there are many Grist readers who shop at Wal-Mart regularly, and I'm not encouraging anyone to start, but if we decry them even when they take steps to preserve wilderness, what incentive do they have to continue in a greener direction?
Organic Matter: Blogging the environment
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jdhlax Posted 2:11 pm
14 Apr 2005
The Danger Of Greenwashing
Dave and Chris make good points, but two things jump out at me.
First Dave, the list is about the difference between what certain corporations say and what they do, not about which ones are harming the environment more.
Second and more importantly, while I agree that anything that can be done to get corporations to stop acting in ecologcially and environmentally harmful ways should be done. However, it's harmful to allow corporations to claim they're doing something they're not, because if people believe them, people won't fight the harms they're doing.
So, we have to walk the fine line between encouragement and criticism. It's an oversimplification to think that encouraging corporations in order to get them to do good without criticizing them when they lie about it will have a positive effect. Very unlikely.
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bhosey Posted 4:15 am
15 Apr 2005
Carrot and Stick and Corporate Kindergarten
Good points all, as we struggle how best to dispense carrot for good behavior and stick for bad. Most of the time I'm so disgusted with the mendacious, outright malevolent behavior of corporations that all I want is to reach for a stick and the bigger the better. Unfortunately though, we are fighting this case in the court of public opinion as well as the courts of law and nobody likes a scold. So every now and again if some corporation's pr team puts out a release that they've done something eco-friendly, we should balance out our usual stick with an appropriate amount of carrot. I do however agree with jdhlax that if you are going to dispense some reward, it had better be earned. Let's not sell our praise too cheaply. People may not like a scold, but they certainly don't respect a chump either.
In interacting with corporations we're obviously dealing with entities who have the mindsets of five-year olds (very crafty, devious five-year olds, but children nevertheless). The way they see things they are the center of the universe, their time-horizon stretches all the way to lunch or maybe naptime and they don't like being told "no". With this in mind perhaps in teaching corporations how to think and act green, we should aim for the model of a Corporate Kindergarten ©. Remember in kindergarten when everyone got a star to stick on their desks even whem all they did was show up at the right time with all articles of clothing on the appropriate limbs? The kids who really excelled would get a gold star, those who were average would get silver and those who managed to quietly remain seated would get bronze. Only if you were very very bad did you get no star and sent to the principal where you might get the stick (I went to elementary school in Texas).
Yes, it's frustrating to have to jump up and down like it's Mardi Gras when all Walmart did was the bare minimum, and that because they were really trying to distract us from the bad things they did. I wish we had better better corporations, just like teachers wish for better students. As Dave pointed out though, it's much more practical to work with you've got. Give Walmart their bronze or maybe silver star but do also remind them that the principal is right down the hall.
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AndrewEcopledge Posted 7:17 am
15 Apr 2005
Greenwashing is Mental Pollution
It's too bad that Dave Roberts got his panties into such a bunch when he read the intro to The Green Life's report on greenwashing. He would have done better by reading the whole report and trying to understand the problem it describes.
Dave is upset that TGL's report doesn't discuss companies that "don't give a damn about the environment." Well Dave, I have a clue for you: the report isn't supposed to cover the worst overall environmentally destructive companies. It's targeting a specific issue: greenwashing. You might as well get upset that a report on mercury emissions doesn't discuss global warming. "But global warming is such a bigger problem!" you say. But that's not what the report is about, Dave.
In this case, the report is specifically about greenwashing, the dissemination of misleading information by an organization to conceal its abuse of the environment in order to present a positive public image.
Greenwashing by itself doesn't pollute the Earth. But it does something that's arguably worse: it pollutes our minds. When George W. Bush talks about "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forests" he is disrupting the ecology of our language and thoughts. He is making it harder for us to understand and think about the environmental problems that we face today, and that makes it much much harder to address those problems.
Corporate greenwashers do the same thing, and their cool-aid even works on the readers (and editors!) of Grist. So the fact that Wal-Mart sets aside a few acres of land for every new store it builds is supposed to be a good thing? Have you considered how many thousands of acres of land are undoubtedly destroyed and polluted to fill that store with products every year, or the thousands of pounds of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere because people drive to the Wal-Mart instead of walking to their corner store?
Those few preserved acres don't make Wal-Mart a responsible citizen. And patting them on the back for what is essentially an empty gesture makes it easier for them to continue in their destructive ways.
It's great to be generous, but our generosity has to be based on truth. When companies mess with the truth ---- when they claim to be helping but are actually harming the environment --- they need to be called out. Even if another company is polluting the Earth more, the greenwasher deserves special attention, because they are polluting the Earth and our minds as well.
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