Greenwash

Big Brands and Carbon Scams

Guy Pearse

• Publisher: Black Inc.
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781921870767
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Sustainability in Business
• Index: Business

Going green is the new black for big business. But how real is the climate-friendly revolution that's being advertised? Toyota reckons Mother Nature drives a Prius, Ford wants us to 'Join the Green Revolution', and McDonald's has painted its famous golden arches green. Facebook has even 'friended' Greenpeace.But are big brands and the celebrities endorsing them really as green as they claim? In Greenwash, in the tradition of Fast Food Nation and No Logo, Guy Pearse looks behind the corporate façade – and what he finds will startle you.Nothing is sacred and no one is safe from scrutiny in this exposé of carbon scams: not the Prius or the Nissan LEAF, not the World Wildlife Fund or Earth Hour, not Oprah or Leonardo DiCaprio. For consumers trying to shop the planet green, Greenwash is a wake-up call. It's also an entertaining and practical book that helps consumers to pick the truly green businesses from the greenwashers and to demand a higher environmental standard from all.'Guy Pearse travels the sewers of misinformation to show us exactly how, from banks to airlines, there's a growth industry in green horseshit. But, after hosing himself off, Pearse also presents us with a far more thoughtful analysis than I've read in other exposés of greenwashing.' —Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved and the New York Times bestseller The Value of Nothing 'Before I read Greenwash I thought I could no longer be shocked by the skulduggery of the marketers. How wrong I was. Read Greenwash to be reminded why advertising is called the dark art and how marketing has become the most destructive force on the planet.' —Clive Hamilton, author of Affluenza and Requiem for a Species '[ Greenwash ] contains some brilliant exposés of capital scamming the unwary consumer, giving them a green hoodwink while continuing opposite practices elsewhere.' — Adelaide Review 'Guy Pearse's welcome book reveals the difficulty of judging the benefits and real environmental costs of the way we live.' —David Suzuki'If you want to know how to pick the true greenies from the fakers, this book is for you.' — Green Lifestyle

A grateful polar bear gives a Nissan LEAF owner a hug for buying a ‘zero tailpipe emissions’ car. For every LEAF sold, Nissan sells 27 X-Trail and Dualis SUVs, and 7 Navara utes among many other carbon-intensive vehicles.

Eco-celeb Leonardo DiCaprio launches a green credit card for HSBC and co-designs greener watches for Tag Heuer.

Diesel’s Global Warming Ready campaign highlighted some upsides of catastrophic climate change – in this case, lots more sun in Manhattan. The company says it was tongue in cheek, and that it’s all for stopping global warming. But it won’t say what’s happening with its own carbon footprint.

Climate-friendly marketing helps ad agencies green their brands. Here, Leo Burnett staff pose with globes and Earth Hour banners. Earth Hour co-creator Todd Sampson wears a green shirt with the words ‘Turn Off the Lights’.

A well-promoted tree-planting collaboration with an environmental group in a distant land creates the impression that a big brand is offsetting much of its carbon footprint.

‘This billboard absorbs air pollutants’, says the sixty-feet-square billboard in Manila featuring 3600 fukien tea plants potted in recycled PET bottles. To offset its growing carbon footprint Coke would need a sign as long as Manhattan and over eight times higher than the Empire State Building.

Many car makers promote hydrogen-fuelled cars, but they’re not selling them to the public. The BMW Hydrogen 7 is given away to celebrities like Hilary Swank; others like the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell are marketed with ‘Not Available for Sale’ in the fine print.

AFL stars Nick Reiwoldt and Luke Hodge decked out in ‘Green for Footy’ gear. Collaborating with Origin Energy helped the league go carbon-neutral and recruited thousands of new Green Power customers. However, the benefits are set to be erased many times over by Origin’s expansion into coal seam gas.

Barges, trains and a few electric trucks involve less carbon dioxide than alternative transport modes, but that doesn’t mean Tesco’s carbon footprint is shrinking.

The impression is that eBay’s offerings are mostly green – that it’s ‘the biggest engine for re-use on Earth’. Having the public write eco-statements and pose in front of eBay Green Team signs enhances this illusion for a company with a fast-growing carbon footprint, and a business now dominated by selling new products.

Chevron Solar logos feature in the company’s TV commercials, website videos feature Chevron staff next to huge solar power arrays, and newspaper ads suggest the company is all for oil companies investing in renewable energy. But you almost certainly won’t find Chevron solar happening in your neighbourhood.

GE dresses up its latest jet engines as sunflowers – convincing enough to confuse a bumblebee. The new engines are more efficient, but GE hopes to have 62 per cent more of its jet engines flying by 2015.

Kermit the Frog explains that it is easy being gree...