Greenwashing vs. Green Being

For a while there I just couldn't cope with, much less compete with the flood of green references as Earth Day approached, and even now as it slowly recedes, so I'm rethinking the value of this blog. More specifically, over the next few days while I"m on vacation in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, I'll be letting thoughts come into my mind without pressure. I'm hoping I'll come up with a new distinctive focus, and one hopes, value for it by then.

In the mean time, let's talk about greenwashing. Companies have clearly read the (green) tea leaves, and every media outlet from Advertising Age to Fox Television to The Harvard Business Review has a green glow to it these days.

While the Google Trends (nee zeitgeist) search doesn't yet have enough data to track the term, there are already sites devoted to debunking or at least tracking the claims. I like Greenwashingindex.com for its "advertising academic" approach to ads spotted by readers

, but there are plenty more.

Of course this is important, and I hope companies that are caught are exposed and punished in the marketplace for it, but I also hope it doesn't turn everyone cynical. There's plenty of cynicism as it is. In fact, I think that even greenwashing is on balance a good thing, because it means that companies are aware that's what their customers and prospects want. Naturally, some companies late to the party will try the quick and dirty approach, but I think the movement is real enough to withstand a certain amount of failures, even cynical ones. What do you think?

See you soon!