As green becomes more of a fad, greenwashing becomes more pervasive. I came across what appears to be a useful site called the Enviromedia Greenwashing Index with a worthwhile public aim -- to subject the sustainbility pretensions of advertising to independent critical viewers: The integrity of today’s green ads can range from outstanding to outrageous, so it’s important for consumers to educate themselves on what makes environmental marketing claims truly authentic. The Greenwashing Index is an automated tool that provides five simple criteria developed by advertising academia and weighted according to their relevance in marketing claims. So, if you’ve seen a good or bad ad heralding the environmental qualities of a product or company, post it here, rank it according to the Greenwashing Index, and then come back to see how other consumers score it.Photo of green giant in Blue Earth, Minnesota by greefus groinks (from Wikimedia Commons)
1 comment:
I just say a presentation about this and while these guys should be applauded for trying something new, the problem I have with this approach is that it only critiques the communication, not the product. In other words, you can have a marginally "green" product but as long as you communicate honestly about it, that's okay. It seems a better metric would be a "best in class" comparison simliar to what yahoo autos offers.
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