Greening the Titanic

More about Greenwashing:

In 2003, Co-op America selected Starbucks as one of the “Ten Worst Greenwashers” for their reluctance to reduce paper waste or purchases Fair Trade coffee. Starbucks

began running ads to announce their intention to add “up to 10 percent” recycled material in their coffee cups, “within five years.” Although authorization was not required, Starbucks initiated a Food and Drug Administration review, which added two years to the development process.

In January 2006, before a single 10%-recycled cup had ever reached a customer’s hand, Starbucks took their bows at the National Recycling Coalition Awards, an honor they gleefully announced in a new ad campaign. I patronize locally-owned coffee shops, but I dropped into Starbucks to see how they were doing with the 10%-recycled cups. Allegedly, the cups are now in circulation, although I’ve not found one and the local servers did not know what I was talking about. In fairness, Starbuck’s policy of offering a discount to those who bring their own cups is the right idea. “It’s a helpful start,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, “but 10 percent recycled content is minuscule.”

Coca-cola also adopted the “ten-percent” solution by agreeing to use that portion of recycled plastic in their bottles. The massive corporations, who create most consumer goods, appear to believe that ten-percent is the magic formula, just enough to say you care. To me, it sounds like 90% bull effluent.

One in a thousand

Corporate retail giant Wal-Mart has discovered that “green” products increase sales, so they pitch their mega-stores to city councils as “green.” They add an organic food section, hire a well-known “environmentalist” to stump for them, and bingo: take over another city and wipe out another 100 local businesses that sustain real community.

In 2007, TerraChoice of Canada studied 1,018 “green” consumer products available in big-box stores like Wal-Mart. They found companies outright lying; making irrelevant, vague, or unsubstantiated claims; adding modest “eco-friendly” features (“recyclable!”); and using these tactics to conceal authentic environmental concerns. Among the 1,018 products, 1,017 failed the TerraChoice tests for authenticity. One single brand of paper towels offered accurate information on its packaging, received independent certification, and directed consumers to additional evidence on its website. One out of a thousand.

Several years ago, Greenpeace analyzed computer manufactures regarding the use of toxic chemicals and product recycling. Astonishingly, cutting-edge Apple computers came in almost last! Greenpeace began putting pressure on Apple Computers to eliminate brominated fire retardants and polyvinyl chloride from their products and to launch a worldwide “re-use and recycle” program. At first, Apple CEO Steve Jobs more or less snubbed Greenpeace. Bad move, Steve.

The corporate-accountability group, As You Sow, filed two shareholder resolutions at Apple’s 2007 AGM, calling for the take-back program and elimination of hazardous chemicals. Before the resolutions came before the shareholders, Jobs woke up from his techie slumber and promised a “greener Apple.” However, a year later, Apple still has not put a non-toxic product on the market, and has launched its take-back program only in the US, not worldwide. The greenish Apple didn’t fall far from the old profiteering tree.

Do the math

For three decades, Canon Cameras has pitched itself in magazine ads as the pre-eminent wildlife camera company. They also launched a corporate policy, “kyosei,” that includes multi-cultural harmony and the ideal of being an “excellent global corporation.” Greenpeace is now asking Canon CEO Fujio Mitarai, current chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), to live up to the promise of global responsibility and preservation of wildlife by helping Japanese environmentalists and the government put an end to Japanese whaling.

Talk is cheap, and promotional hype is even cheaper. Companies who want to polish up their green reputations need to act decisively and achieve actual results. The problem with all this “green” consuming is that it remains consuming. Humanity is halfway through the planet’s peak forests, halfway through the easy oil, we’ve decimated the Atlantic cod, poisoned rivers, drained aquifers, and dumped our toxic wastes in the ocean.

The wealthy 15% of humanity consumes 85% of the resources as the polar ice melts and soils wash away. The privileged elite is not going to change these destructive habits of humanity by purchasing $500 eco shoes and hybrid cars, no matter how we shade them “green.” We need to make second-hand shoes and public transportation the fashion statement.

My family’s resource consumption is probably not universally sustainable, but my personal policy is to buy nothing new. I wear splendid second-hand clothes and our home is furnished with hand-me-down furniture and appliances. For the most part, I can supply my needs off of western society’s junk. This is called living off the waste stream. I teach my children: Owning stuff isn’t what makes us cool or worthwhile.

The changes that human society must make in the coming decades are monumental. When 1 billion people use 85% of the planet’s resources, how will the other six billion people achieve this consumer status? Do the math. We’ll need six planets worth of resources. Meanwhile, we’re adding 75 million net humans every year, most of them in poor, degraded environments.

Humanity needs to avoid false solutions and jingo environmentalism. We must learn to think and speak at the appropriate scale of the challenges we face.

Otherwise, we’re just greening the Titanic.

This was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Ecology . Feel free to respond, or trackback.