Ecopreneurist

Last week, Tom Lauria, Vice President, Communications for the International Bottled Water Association commented on a post about greenwash happening over at Nestle Waters where he accused me of being an anti-corporate type that hides behind ’saving the earth’ to bash businesses because I hate capitalism. My sense is that Tom, and quite possibly others, do not think there is any valid way to criticize green claims made by companies without being anti-corporate and anti-capitalist.

What about when a Dell Exec Knocks Apple’s Green Ads? Is Dell anti-corporate and anti-capitalist because it wants to set the record straight?  Dell is currently ranked No. 25 among the Fortune 500 companies and No. 88 in the Fortune Global 500. Since its pretty hard to be anti-corporate and anti-capitalist with those stats, maybe Dell is just calling it like it is.

And as business people, why should we complain about greenwash anyhow?

First, it is not anti-corporate and anti-capitalist to set the record straight on environmental achievements versus environmental distortion.  It is every business person’s—from the entrepreneur to the VP of communications at a Fortune 500 company—job to do just that so we do not dilute real environmental achievements.

Second, Bob Pearson, VP—Communities & Conversations at Dell said it well in his blog post:

“…companies who choose to lead have an obligation to be open and transparent. We have a responsibility to engage in dialogue about the environment, whether we agree or disagree with an individual person or group. It all contributes to the greater good.”

• » See also: Eco-Libris: An Interview With Orly Zeewy, a Branding Consultant, on Green Branding
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So…is Apple guilty of greenwash or Dell guilty of sour grapes? Is Apple really that bad and is Dell really that good? Well, its complicated. According Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics that rates how electronics companies stack up, Dell ranks #12 and Apple ranks #14. I should mention that Nokia is ranked #1.

Few—if any—companies are perfectly green. Most people do not expect them to be. What people want is transparency and honesty. They do not want products positioned as green when they are not. Should companies talk about environmental achievements? Absolutely! But take heed when positioning products as green. Consumers, and apparently other companies, will call you for it (yet again, another Communications VP is spending a lot of time blogging about greenwash).

Its a pretty tall order for the primary selling benefit of a product to be green and even harder for a Fortune 500 company to pull it off. Not even #1 Nokia is positioning current products as being green (although they did get slammed earlier this year for making a big, green deal out of a concept phone.)

In fact, can anyone think of a Fortune 500 company that has a truly green product? Now, that would be good to hear about.

Other posts of interest:
Apple vs. Dell: Which is Actually Greener?
Bottled Water VIPs Think We Are Anti-Corporate, Capitalism-Haters
Lessons From The Greenwash Police

Photo: Brian Fitzgerald at Flikr under creative commons license.

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