Look around you. Everything you see right now is biodegradable. From the flat panel large screen TV to the plastic fork in you fast food bag. It’s the perfect term for the greenwasher because “biodegradable” only means that a material will break down “over a period of time.” It could take a year, ten years, or ten thousand years. It’s all biodegradable.

On the other hand, “compostable” actually means something. To use that term a product or material must adhere to specific scientific criteria. Essentially, a material must break down into measurably tiny and environmentally benign parts within a specifically limited time frame. The following video from VivBizClub spells out the difference between biodegradable and compostable. Don’t be greenwashed!

Related articles

• 5 Things You Might Not Know About Composting (casasugar.com)
• Bioplastics Debate: Could They Harm The Environment? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Compostable vs. Biodegradable (vivbizclub.com)

From a reader tip:

Most major retailers like Best Buy and Walmart, have electronics recycling programs for consumers to safely dispose of their electronics gadgets and appliances. Home Depot ostensibly offers one as well, but you might not know that if you talked with a Home Depot customer service representative.

A reader tip from John tells the following story:

John wanted to recycle an old microwave so he called Home Depot’s customer service department to get recycling information. John contacted one and then a second representative, neither one, John reports, had any idea of what to tell him.

John finally got an answer from Micaiah Holley from Home Depot’s Customer Support Center, informing John about their partnership with 1-800-Cleanup, a recycling hotline offered by Earth911. The problem is two out of three customer reps at Home Depot knew anything about it. At least that is John’s experience.

It may not rise to the level of full-blown greenwash, but how well a company, or any organization, disseminates information about its sustainability and environmental stewardship programs is a true reflection of how important those values are to that organization.

Image credit: The Lazy Environmentalist (image is not that of our tipper. Thanks John for the tip!)

This post is commentary on Hunter Richards‘ article “Software to Hold Greenwashers Accountable” published in the Software Advice Blog.
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It is very much the wild west in the world of green advertising and corporate “green certification” programs. With little confirmation or verifiable standards, companies can appeal to a growing eco-awarness among consumers with little fundamental backing for such claims. Scientifically honed messages push an image of eco-friendliness and sustainability, stretching the truth at best and often peddling outright lies.

Like a parasite, greenwashing makes it that much more difficult for business and consumers alike to find a healthy balance between commerce and long term sustainability. Greenwashing is insidious, confusing consumers interested in making right choices for their families, tainting the idea of “green,” and leaving many cynical and apathetic to the idea – even as many companies make honest and significant efforts to become more sustainable and offer more eco-friendly choices.

But how to curb the temptation to go for the quick buck that some simply can’t resist? Is there a way to tame the “wild west” of greenwashing?

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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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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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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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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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The Climate Counts Scorecard is a collaborative effort to help consumers make a conscious decision for the products and services they buy. The scorecard rates some of the largest companies on their climate impact. The non-profit now has an iPhone app, so you can have the Scorecard with you wherever you go.