Arvin Yana is a communication specialist with wide-ranging experience in technical writing, report editing, newspaper journalism, broadcasting, web development and design, print publication design, process documention, event organizing and media relations. He owns iecspecialist.com which assists NGOs and SMEs achieve more client impact through various communication services including low-cost but highly-strategic web development and annual report writing and design, among others.

Early this year, British advertising watchdog Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) asked the Malaysian Palm Oil Council to pull misleading television ads that ran on the BBC. The ads claimed that palm oil was environmentally friendly, and used green images and statements, such as “A gift from nature, a gift for life,” “Helping the planet breathe,” and “Sustainably produced since 1917.” Environmentalists like Greenpeace International maintain that the palm oil industry is responsible for environmental destruction and carbon dioxide emissions, and is therefore ‘cooking the climate’.

Elsewhere in the US, the Corporate Accountability International is currently campaigning against Coke, Nestlé, and Pepsi which, by venturing into bottled water business, the movement accuses of misleading consumers into believing that bottled water is better than tap water, when, in fact, bottled water is actually less regulated.

It is a common complaint among environmentalists and others that corporations are claiming to be ‘green’ when they are not. Critics call this “greenwashing,” an effort by business and industry to appear responsive to the public’s environmental concerns, while generally continuing business as usual. The term was originally coined around 1990, when some of America’s worst polluters (DuPont, Chevron, Bechtel, the American Nuclear Society, and the Society of Plastics Industry) tried to pass themselves off as ecofriendly at a trade fair taking place in Washington, DC.

Greenwashing can be as simple as changing the name of a product or picture to convey a more environmentally friendly image, like placing a few leafy trees on a bottle of environmentally damaging chemicals. It is indeed regrettable how, oftentimes, more money and resources are put into advertising green by companies than in researching and implementing sustainable practices.

Locally, we see companies proclaiming their “greening up” efforts, but have few genuine examples to prove it. Planting trees, for example, is a common activity; but companies fail to realize that only fully grown trees absorb much carbon, and trees take a lot longer to grow than the velocity of black smoke blowing out of a factory smokestack. Supermarkets today are full of green marketing or ecomarketing, ranging from products such as toilet power to laundry detergents and household cleaners, promoted as safe for the environment. But while the fact that companies now provide consumers with “greener” choices is a positive development itself, looking closely, a consumer may be unaware that neither the government nor trade associations regulate these labels, so a label enumerating environmental benefits may just be a label.

To avoid having to greenwash, Jake Cook, winner of the US-based 2007 StartupNation Home-Based100 “Greenest” category makes some suggestions:

• Let your product’s benefits speak first and any environmental benefits can follow. You may first mention, for instance, how much a consumer can save from buying your product because of its tested durability before framing its “green” benefits. Even though consumers’ interest and education about the environment has increased, environmental concerns have not become the primary purchasing factor for consumers, but between two comparable products an environmental message can be an important tie breaker.

• Practice transparency. Increasingly it is not what a company says, but what it does not say about its products that most affects its brand image.

• Make regular corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, since these are the first place most media and concerned consumers look to see if a company’s environmental claims can be substantiated.

• Build solid sustainable practices into your business and tell that story honestly to your customer.

• Realize this green battle will not be fought over the next three to five years’ time, not the next six months. Start somewhere relative, build up practices internally, establish communication channels for environmental practices beyond product messages, and always make sure the first leg your product or service stands on is its own leg. Then add that green leg when it is solid.

In the Philippines, a simple tip would be to provide some kind of green certification from reputable industry organizations for your product’s environmental benefits. A few years back, the Department of Trade and Industry – Bureau of Product Standards (DTI-BPS), as the chief agency for the National Ecolabeling Programme Board (ELP Board), launched the Philippines’ Ecolabelling Programme (ELP) Product Certification.

The initiative encourages manufactures to apply for the certification that is administered by Clean and Green Foundation Inc. When they pass the criteria, they will be provided the license to use the “Green Choice” logo on their products or on the packaging of their products, which demonstrates the products’ sound environmental performance, and the manufacturers’ commitment to protect the environment.