For the longest time, consumer brands have made big billions by cunningly marketing their products as “green”. While FTC regulations against such marketing puffery have strengthened over time, has the average consumer gained any chance in the face of greenwashing? In the second installment of Tom Osdoba’s conversation with Chris and Jason on The Recombobulator Lab, we’re getting into just that. Plus more. If you don’t know yet, Tom Osdoba is the Director of NetZeroCities EU and the Senior Advisor at Climate-KIC.

Technically speaking, greenwashing refers to the act of companies making unsupported environmental claims in a bid to convince consumers to buy their products. While this seemed like a small thing to do in the past, the practice has snowballed over time into an industrial scale, becoming a major issue, simply because of the enormous business gain it has brought for companies!

How The Greenwashing Wave Hit Our Shores

A few reasons that have contributed to the greenwashing wave in the US:

One, the FTC in the US is apparently very weak unlike in the UK, for example, which seems to have nailed some of the biggest fashion brands like H&M and Zara among others. There need to be better laws against greenwashing to discourage it from the root.

Another thing that makes people fall prey to greenwashing is its ability to hide behind mountains of technical language, dancing on the head of pin distinctions that most people not only wouldn't know how to evaluate, but don't want to evaluate. It is worthwhile to note here that despite the brain having a lot of capacity to process information, it only has so much attention. So, no matter the amount of information readily available about advertising puffery, the brain is drawn into patterns and habits, often leading us to repeat things that don’t serve us well. In fact, as Tom says, 80% of our choices are not even our real choices. Those are just our reactions to systemic behaviors and patterns that we’re part of.

The World’s Biggest Polluters Start The World’s Biggest Environment Campaigns

Surprising? We know. Consider the ‘Keep America Beautiful’ campaign, which was started by PepsiCo and Coca-Cola (among others)  – some of the biggest polluters in America in the 50s – to reduce litter. The whole idea translated to asking people to clean up their garbage, for the trash was largely generated by them. Irony much? But that’s not all. More for-environment campaigns like Keep Britain Tidy and Keep Australia Beautiful have followed over the years. The focus of the participating companies being recycling THEIR mess.

Capitalism adds to these greenwashing scandals, making the campaigns even more deceptive. Is there a tidy way to go forward in society without letting greenwashing trick us? What more should we know about dissuading undeserving consumer brands and companies and making way for cleaner and honest ones? We unravel a lot of that stuff in this episode. Make sure to give it a listen!