Open
any progressive newspaper or magazine these days and you're likely to
see a barrage of advertisements for some of the most socially and
environmentally irresponsible and destructive corporations on the
planet, extolling their own virtues in carefully contrived hard-sells
designed to create the myth that they actually care about anything
other than maximizing their bottom line. It's called greenwashing
(a variant of whitewashing,
the time-honoured way of covering up illegal and immoral activities
with a thin veneer of denial, false alibis, coverups, indignant
protestations and lies). This week's New
Yorker has 'everything is
wonderful, especially us' ads for Chevron
and BP before you even get to
the table of contents. Can you imagine the Wall
Street Journal or trashtalk
radio allowing PETA and the WWF to advertise in those media, without so
much as a comment?
Greenwashing, defined in the OED as “disinformation disseminated by an
organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public
image”, is essentially deceptive advertising, but because this
advertising is not talking about its product, it is not illegal. It is,
of course, morally reprehensible that corporations ranking near the top
of the Boycott
List for their interminable
litany of irresponsible actions, would
choose to lie (mostly by
omission) to citizens and consumers, and then write off the cost of
these lies as a tax deduction, as a 'cost of doing business'. The
taxpayer therefore gets a triple hit -- they pay more for the product
to cover the cost of the deceptive ads, they pay a proportionally
higher share of taxes (individuals are not allowed to write off the
cost of their
lies as a tax deduction), and, ultimately, they pay for the socially
and environmentally irresponsible behaviour of these corporate liars --
global warming, pollution-related health costs, the social costs of
offshoring and stripping away of employee benefits, the cost of wars to
secure cheap energy, the massive degradation of land and loss of
biodiversity etc., that these corporations are directly responsible
for. Remember, ExxonMobil,
the most irresponsible corporation of them all, has yet to pay a penny
for the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, one of the most flagrant and
extreme environmental crimes in our planet's history.
The tactics here are two-fold: (1) brainwash uncritical
citizens into believing that corporations really do care about social
and environmental issues, and (2) sap the energy and blunt
the intensity of critical
citizens by forcing them to respond to greenwashing ads and by inviting
them into meaningless 'dialogues' that will make them believe the
corporation in question is actually interested in at least listening to their
concerns.
So what can be done about it? Not much, alas:
- Don't
be fooled: Learn
to recognize greenwashing as just another form of propaganda. Be aware of it. Show others how to think critically, too.
- Don't buy it: Boycott
organizations that use these tactics, and tell others why you're doing
so.
- Complain to the
greenwashers: Write them and tell them (briefly) that you don't like being lied
to, and you're not fooled by their phony PR.
- Complain to the media:
Tell magazines you like that you don't like them accepting ads from
greenwashers, and that such ads undermine the integrity of the magazine or other media organization.
- Don't get sucked in:
If you're an activist, don't let greenwashers blunt your energies by
getting into drawn-out, useless exchanges with them, or letting them put you on
some meaningless 'advisory board' meant to slow you down and shut you
up. You may be able to change the system better from inside, but don't
for a minute believe that these exchanges or positions put you
'inside'.
- Support whistleblowers: Often it is public servants in
the very governments and agencies that are in the back pockets of corporate
interests, or employees of the corporations themselves, who blow the
whistle on illegal and unethical behaviour and show greenwashing for
the lying it really is. We need stronger laws to protect
whistleblowers, and media that report what they have to say.
- Support courageous media: When a media outlet reports (or
does investigative reporting to surface) corporate wrongdoing, it risks
the wrath of the entire corporatist establishment, and with it accepts
the possibility of large advertising revenue losses and even lawsuits.
We need to celebrate media organizations that are willing to pay that
kind of price to do their job: telling the truth.
We're not going to stop it. Greenwashing is a
multi-billion dollar activity
that is carefully and professionally orchestrated using all available
corporatist machinery: Corporations, powerful industry associations,
heavily-financed lobby groups and the governments they have bought. But
if we take the steps listed above, greenwashers might find that their
efforts are starting to backfire on them. The presence of these
self-serving ads might start to be seen less as an indication of corporate
responsibility than as evidence the corporation has something to hide.
As in "Methinks they doth protest too much".
Cartoon from Minimum Security by Stephanie McMillan
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
