from Natural Life magazine, May/June 2008
From the Editor's Desk
 Who is Pointing a Finger?
As I was writing the cover story on greenwashing for this issue, I received a media release publicizing a workshop for businesses about how to incorporate green efforts and sustainable practices into their brand and marketing strategies. My hope is that they also learn something a bit more difficult – and that’s how to incorporate sustainability into their everyday business practices.
The fact that there are increasing numbers of businesses trying to present themselves as green when they’re not is, perhaps, an inevitable growing pain in the move towards real sustainability. Yes, these greenwashers are exploiting people’s honest desire to be responsible consumers and environmental friendliness is often little more than the sales angle du jour. But maybe there is something to celebrate in the fact that companies are competing for customers based on their perceived greenness. Maybe we should see it as both a sign of and a precursor to progress.
For instance, as Wal-Mart has publicized its new energy efficient stores and added organic food and compact fluorescent light bulbs to its offerings, it has continued to be an activist target. But whether you believe the company to be honestly trying to change or just greenwashing its sins in other areas, it has probably created the tipping point that will drive Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone off the U.S. market. Recently, it announced that its store brand of milk in the U.S. will come exclusively from cows not treated with artificial growth hormones. And that was the day the ground shifted, says Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association, because Wal-Mart is the largest grocery retailer in the U.S. (Canada banned growth hormones in milk in 1998.) Wal-Mart says it was only responding to consumer demand. Of course, the skeptics will wonder if the company’s BGH-free claims can be trusted.
Until we live in a perfectly green world, the answer to this conundrum lies partly in balance and in understanding that toxicity is a tricky issue and that ridding our lives of all toxins and pollutants is almost impossible. A huge part of the solution is for governments to create better standards and labeling regulations…and to enforce them. Furthermore, as author and green business guru Joel Makower points out, we all need to be as hard on ourselves as we are on the companies we criticize. In his blog, Two Steps Forward, (makower.typepad.com), he writes, “While it’s good that we maintain high standards for companies seeking to claim environmental leadership, I can’t help but ponder the hypocrisy of it all: how much more we expect of companies than of ourselves.”
When we drive hybrids or carpool to work, or give up driving altogether; when we install solar panels on our roofs; when we banish pesticides and cleaning chemicals from our homes; when we purchase only locally produced goods; when we install energy-efficient light bulbs and appliances, water-saving devices, insulation and weatherstripping; when we stop assuaging our guilt for that cross-continent vacation by throwing some money at a carbon offset company...then we will be doing what we are asking companies to do.
Let’s all examine our own lives to be sure we are doing all that we can to address environmental problems…without holding others to a higher standard than we have set for ourselves.
Natural Life Editor Wendy Priesnitz
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