The Six Sins of Greenwashing

National Restaurant Association: A Greener Shade of Greenwash, Part 4 – Recap and Conclusion

Over the past three days we’ve seen what we’ve been calling “A Greener Shade of Greenwash” from the National Restaurant Association (NRA).

In Part One we laid the foundation. Showing how the NRA uses slick marketing and well-produced multimedia to deliver a message supposedly promoting green business practices, emphasizing the advantages of appealing to the eco-minded customer and implementing sustainability best practices. The NRA says they offer the Greener Restaurant program as a solution for restaurateurs.

In Part Two we saw step-by-step how an imaginary restaurant - Green Wallace Wash – becomes Certified/Recognized by the NRA as a “Greener Restaurant” three times over, all by doing nothing more than paying the annual membership fee and going online and making false claims about its internal sustainability program – all endorsed by the National Restaurant Association’s Greener Restaurant program.

We discuss the National Restaurant Association’s attempt to sidestep accountability for a program with no standards, benchmarks, or verification by insisting such burden is on the shoulders of the consumer, not the organization granting the endorsement.

In Part Three we examined the Conserve Solutions Center, a pavilion planned for the exhibit floor of the upcoming National Restaurant Association Restaurant Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago on May 22-25.

The Conserve Solutions Center is promoted as an opportunity for business-to-business marketing of “green business solutions,” an opportunity to display green products and services for interested restaurant owners.

We saw how “Troy,” a prospective exhibitor at the Conserve Solutions Center submitted four items for consideration: two products made of virgin plastic, one cleaning product clearly stated as made from 100% Chlorine and ethyl cellusolve (a chemical listed in California as a hazardous material), and a Styrofoam cup. When specifically asked if the products were acceptable for inclusion at the Conserve Solutions Center, a representative from the NRA replied in an email: “Your products are a great fit for the Conserve Solutions Center”.

We have established a clear pattern of the kind of cynicism, deception, and false claims that define the worst in greenwashing. It should not – indeed it can not – be the burden of the customer to benchmark and verify claims implicitly and explicitly endorsed by the organization issuing the endorsement - or the endorsement means nothing. That is a truth the semantical argument in which the National Restaurant Association would have us engage over a “recognition” vs. a “certification” program cannot dissuade.

The National Restaurant Association has undertaken a sophisticated, well-planned, and intentional greenwash campaign. It ultimately hurts those it professes to help, casting doubt and suspicion on legitimately benchmarked and verified sustainability programs.

And there’s one more thing.

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National Restaurant Association: A Greener Shade of Greenwash, Part 3

The Conserve Solution Center - Providing real solutions or pushing greenwash?

In parts One and Two of our series A Greener Shade of Greenwash, we demonstrate how the National Restaurant Association (NRA), through their Greener Restaurant program and Conserve website, employ a compelling message aimed at restauranteurs interested in the advantages of implementing sustainability best practices in their operations.

From attracting the growing number of eco-minded customers actively seeking out green dining options to appealing to the sincere, sustainability-minded business owner, the NRA offers as a solution the Greener Restaurant program. A program that, as we see in part Two of this series, requires nothing more than payment of the $250 annual membership fee and basic computer skills to produce signed Greener Restaurant certificate and a host of marketing materials, including use of the Greener Restaurant logo. It doesn’t even require an actual restaurant to be recognized by the National Restaurant Association as a Greener Restaurant.

It is a program with no standards, benchmarking, or verification, claiming instead that such burden rests with the consumer. It is, therefore, a program that is meaningless and detrimental to the cause it claims to support. Instead of a solution, the Greener Restaurant program only creates confusion and suspicion.

Now we’ll turn our attention to the upcoming National Restaurant Association Restaurant Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago on May 22-25, and NRA plans to set up a pavilion on the exhibit floor called the Conserve Solution Center. In a press release the NRA says this about the purpose of the exhibit:

“Restauranteurs looking for ways to ramp up environmental efforts and find greener business solutions will find the information, products, services, and contacts they need…”

Care to guess what kind of products and services the NRA sees as “green business solutions?” (Here’s a hint: remember that Styrofoam cup we introduced back in part one?)

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National Restaurant Association: A Greener Shade of Greenwash, Part 2

Getting a Fake Green Restaurant Certificate from the National Restaurant Association:
easy as 1, 2, 3…

Follow along as a restaurant called “Green Wallace Wash” (not a real restaurant) gets their green credentials from the National Restaurant Association.

To recap, in part one yesterday, we outlined the Greener Restaurants program sponsored by the National Restaurant Association (NRA). We showed how the NRA utilizes increased public awareness of green and sustainability issues to motivate restauranteurs to join the program (for a $250 annual subscription).

Through the NRA’s well-produced Conserve website and video, we learn how other successful restaurants are reaping the benefits of committing to implementation of sustainability best practices, attracting more eco-minded customers (and how more customers are becoming eco-minded).

The website (correctly) extols the advantages of becoming a “greener” restaurant, and the advantages of taking a step-by-step “best practices approach” to sustainability. An approach that not only can save money in the long run. It’s the right thing to do on a triple bottom line - benefiting people, planet, and profit.

It is a compelling story for restauranteurs, urging them to become part of an expanding group of like-minded business owners ready to blaze the trail for the future of American restaurants. And thus the story begins.

Now it’s time to find out if the NRA backs up this polished message with a real program worthy of the rhetorical flourish and, more importantly, worthy of trust. Or if underneath it is all just well-oiled greenwash.

Through an industry-insider tip, TheGreenwashingBlog shows how “Green Wallace Wash,” doing nothing more than paying the annual fee for membership and making a few selections on the website, produces not one, but three separate  Greener Restaurant certificates, each verifying membership in the National Restaurant Association’s Greener Restaurant program. All for a restaurant that doesn’t even exist.

Here’s proof:

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National Restaurant Association’s Conserve Program – A Greener Shade of Greenwash (part 1)

Fake certification program results in confusion and misrepresentation

This story is exclusive to TheGreenWashingBlog.com

Four decades ago, around the time of the first Earth Day, a person wouldn’t think twice about tossing a styrofoam cup in the trash after a single gulp of water. Most people wouldn’t have a notion what they should even think twice about. After all, there’s plenty where that came from.

These days most people are at least vaguely aware that with the casual toss of a styrofoam cup goes an enormous amount of resources. Resources suddenly turned into unyielding waste. Many might still toss the cup, but people are generally smarter about “being green,” for lack of a better phrase, than they were forty years ago.

That’s what makes the National Restaurant Association’s new “Greener Restaurants” program so insidious.

TheGreenWashingBlog has acquired insider information and evidence that show how the National Restaurant Association (NRA) plays on (and hides behind) that increased consumer awareness – to the detriment of both customer and business owner. We will reveal over the next several days how the NRA offers to its members what is essentially a bogus green restaurant certification program. Though the NRA calls it a “recognition” program to deflect the responsibility and integrity of actual certification, we will show how any such distinction is the same as that between green and greenwash.

With no benchmarks or verifiable standards this is a program that allows both unscrupulous and well-meaning restaurant owners to claim adherence to sustainability practices in their business, and to display that claim to the public. The scheme muddies the waters between what is green and what is greenwash, leaving the diner hoping to patronize  a verified sustainably-run establishment out in the cold. It’s hit or miss at best because all it really takes to be endorsed by the National Restaurant Association as a “greener restaurant” is green. Money. Cold, hard cash.

And it all starts with exactly the right message…

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BP: The Green Image Turns Brown

BP has made a concerted effort to present itself as the greenest of the Big Oil giants.

It’s an image that turns more brown with each passing day.

Compostable Cups? Georgia Pacific Makes Misleading Claims

Georgia-Pacific claims their “PerfecTouch” line of plastic cups are compostable (see second bullet point in this online listing). While there is a bit of a qualification in that listing, our whistle-blower on this story says the cup is also described in print catalogs with no qualification regarding its compostability whatsoever.

The cup is made of polyethylene, a material that is not compostable. To claim a product is compostable, it must pass the ASTM D6400 and D6868 test, and be certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute. The PerfcTouch cup made by Georgia-Pacific does not meet any of these qualifications.

Our reader/watchdog summed it up best: ”GP (Georigia-Pacific) is falsely advertising this product and completely misleading consumers which cause bad soil quality, consumer confusion, and is plain-and-simple green washing”.

If you have a tip for us, please let us know.

Seventh Generation less than perfect

I love Seventh Generation.  Seriously, they are a forward thinking company who virtually single-handedly changed the consumables market by offering quality, bio-degradable and other earth-friendly products at a competitive price.

However, while attending an event outside their corporate headquarters in Burlington, Vermont, I saw this photo.  I don’t believe any company can run without waste, but this picture is at the very least, worth a chuckle.

With all due respect, Seventh Generation could probably reduce their waste some.

Fido Cellular Greenwashes Like a Pro

Anyone seen the recent Fido Cellular commercials?  In addition to being cheap-looking and pixely, a major component of the campaign is the “eco-friendliness” of Fido.  They claim two traits make Fido the green choice.

a) They offer two phones made in part by recycled plastics.  When looking into this claim, the housings of the devices are made with 25% post-consumer plastic.  In reality, electronics producers typically use partially recycled plastic.  It’s an economics thing Fido, don’t flatter yourself.  Plus, only 17% of electronics are made of plastic.  This according to the Plastics Division of American Chemistry.

b) “All plans come with online billing”.  Again, this is economics.  Everyone knows it’s cheaper to produce and process online bills.  Secondly, virtually every cell provider offers this.  By outlining something you and everyone else already does, you aren’t any greener than you were yesterday.

So here’s a tip if you really want to “green-up” your cell service.  Stop switching phones every 6 months.  A great deal of the environmental impact of your cell phone is caused by the production and disposal of electronics which contain harmful chemicals, volatile and environmentally disruptive metals, and non-bio-degradable plastics.  Want to be a green cell consumer?  Keep that old phone until it stops making calls.

Kohler: Mixed Messages?

We were sent this tip from Taryn. On the same day, Taryn received her issue of National Geographic (whose current issue is about global water resources), and in it was this first ad on the left. In Taryn’s mailbox was also her latest issue of Wired, containing within its pages the ad below –  with a remarkably  different message; “jarring” is the word Taryn used to describe her reaction.

While the SaveWaterAmerica campaign is educational and ostensibly leads to a good cause, could they do more? Why the stark difference in their message between these two ads? Readers of Wired don’t even get to hear about SaveWaterAmerica.

Thanks to Taryn for this tip, if you have a greenwashing ad or PR campaign you’d like us to know about please submit your tip for consideration

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