Caring about the environment has become a movement popular beyond hippie and vegan businesses. Now businesses everywhere want to appear environmentally friendly, with green products, recycling initiatives and charities.
Coca-Cola commercials feature its donations to save the Arctic ecosystem. McDonald’s dedicates part of its website to show off its environmental efforts. Walmart is hosting a competition for students to pitch their ideas to improve business sustainability efforts.
Ottawa’s Taylor Schaefer is a top-five finalist in the Walmart Green Student Challenge, but says businesses in general are not doing enough for the environment.
“It costs money initially to make environmental changes and products for the changes can be expensive because a lot of them are new,” he says.
“A lot of businesses don’t even believe there is a payoff because there’s usually a bit of an upfront cost. Some companies just don’t have the capital to invest and others just choose not to do it.”
Schaefer attends Carleton University, where he studies conservation and sustainability engineering, a program in that started at the university last year.
New environmental programs have been popping up at universities across the country over the past few years due to the ever-increasing focus on sustainability.
He and two friends entered the Walmart challenge with a pitch to encourage businesses to compost. Schaefer says their pitch is to have the big-box retailer partner with businesses by covering 30 per cent of the cost of a $120,000 composting machine.
The fertilizer created would be picked up, packaged and sold back to consumers at Walmart. Schaefer says he hopes the initiative would begin with local businesses in Ottawa, then spread nationally.
The winner will be chosen by leaders of companies in Canada following presentations by the five finalist groups on Feb. 26. However, even if Schaefer’s team wins first place, they win a cash prize, but no promise that their idea will be implemented.
Contests and initiatives like this one do encourage green thinking, but do not have to promise or show any actual changes. This falls in line with greenwashing, a form of marketing that deceptively promotes a company or product as environmentally-friendly.
A 2012 American Ipsos study reported that 46 per cent of respondents said they are more inclined to buy a product if it is environmentally friendly. Schaefer says he would expect the same result in Canada.
Schaefer says it is time for businesses to make real green changes. “That’s the hard part, though. Convincing them to actually do it instead of just saying you’re green when you’re not.”
CEOs are aware that people are more likely to shop at eco-friendly stores and companies want this business without committing to additional costs.
In September 2012, CBC television’s Marketplace investigated environmental claims and found the 10 worst household products for greenwashing.
For example, Dawn antibacterial dish soap, whose promotions promise that Dawn saves wildlife by donating this soap to clean animals after oil spills, in fact contains triclosan, an ingredient toxic to animals.
The issue is the lack of accountability. A company can claim to be doing great things for the environment without coming under too much scrutiny. If companies can achieve the same financial success simply by saying they’re environmentally friendly, then what incentive is there to actually be environmentally friendly?
Consumers who care about the environment and businesses that actually follow through with green promises and initiatives should push for standards for calling products “green” or “natural.”
While there are some consumer watchdogs, such as Marketplace, businesses can often get away with empty environmental promises.
Until there is a strict system to ensure companies fulfill their green promises, consumers cannot expect them to be forthcoming about their actual environmental impact.
Greenwashing takes advantage of well-meaning consumers. Standards on claims that a product is eco-friendly must be put into place to stop greenwashing.