Coming Clean: is greenwashing good for business?

beatriz

Coming Clean
Is greenwashing good for business?
By Auden Schendler
22 Aug 2006

In public talks about Aspen Skiing Company's environmental programs, I used to describe our wind-powered Cirque chairlift. Renewable-energy purchases for that lift keep 30,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, out of the air annually, I'd tell my audience. Furthermore, it was the first renewably powered lift in the country.

My listeners would often applaud the accomplishments I was describing. But then I'd tell them they had been greenwashed.

To greenwash, according to Word Spy, is "to implement token environmentally friendly initiatives as a way of hiding or deflecting criticism about existing environmentally destructive practices." But it also means outright deception. (....)

continue reading: Grist Magazine, http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2006/08/22/schendler/index.html?source=daily