What is Green Washing?

The term “green washing” is used to describe companies who overstate their commitment to environmentally friendly alternatives to doing business. They are using the ‘green’ term deceptively to promote their product or service as being environmentally friendly and covering the fact that there is in all probability a ‘pollution contention’ or is a polluting product.

In simple terms greenwashing is pollution of the mind. Ad executives and the people that hire them, are hoping that you’re fooled about what an actual substantial change in their product maybe.

As anyone who has looked into the National Organic Program knows, there are significant difficulties in coming up with a single regulation that covers all of a federally mandated label with a specific definition. Declaring that the nutrition in food must be labeled in a specific way is easy compared to defining “green.”

Education on the underlying principles of the many facets of pollution is really the only way to allow people to understand and analyze products and services by rational merit.

Don’t be fooled by a company who is ‘greenwashing’!