Greenwash

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Greenwash (a portmanteau of green and whitewash) is a pejorative term that environmentalists and other critics use to describe the activity of giving a positive public image to putatively environmentally unsound practices. The term first arose in the early 1990s (an early use of the word appeared as the title of an article in the 1991 March or April issue of Mother Jones magazine).

Corporations claim that the promotion of free markets policies, new technology and economic growth are essential to promoting sustainable development, and increasingly claim that they are more environmentally aware. Critics, however, claim that there is little evidence transnational corporations are substantially changing their behavior despite their rhetoric; and they claim that many corporations remain the primary creators of environmentally damaging and unsustainable technologies. Greenwashing is thus a deceptive marketing technique only.

[edit] Reading List

Monbiot, George. Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning. Allen Lane. ISBN 0713999233.

[edit] References

"Greenwash!", David Beers and Catherine Capellaro, (1991) Mother Jones, March/April:88.
"A Brief History of Greenwash", Joshua Karliner, CorpWatch, March 22, 2001.
New Scientist - Aid to disaster 07/08/89, late 80's use of the term.