On the other hand, “compostable” actually means something. To use that term a product or material must adhere to specific [...]]]> 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)

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 [...]]]> 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!)

Like a parasite, [...]]]> This post is commentary on Hunter Richards‘ article “Software to Hold Greenwashers Accountable” published in the Software Advice Blog.
——
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?

A new sheriff in town – carbon accounting software

Writing in the blog Software Advice, Hunter Richards makes the case for taking a page from the methods and tools used to hold corporations accountable for their financial reporting and apply those same concepts to “carbon accounting.”

Richards argues that, despite the recent widespread shenanigans on Wall Street, the United States remains a leader in corporate financial accountability. Using computerized financial tracking, combined with rigorous government oversight and generally accepted accounting principals (GAAP), companies are required to accurately account for their financial dealings and reporting. There have been obvious breaches in the system, but with modern software technology, regulation, and GAAP, Enron-style subterfuge would be much more the norm than the exception.

With the advent and growth of Enterprise Carbon Accounting software (ECA), combined with accepted principals of accountability, the same can be true of how corporations report their environmental footprint.

But to be effective, ECA technology must integrate with a solid infrastructure of principals; Richards lays out five fundamental principals:

Richards describes these principals in greater detail in his article, but generally speaking, I take these points generally as working to insure transparency, awareness, and responsibility in green claims and reporting. From top to bottom all participants - government, business, and consumers – must take on the responsibility of creating, cajoling,  and demanding a green economy. This requires informed decision-making by consumers that rests on honest and transparent reporting and information from business.

A tall order

I have no argument with Richards’ premise. But given the current political climate – as it were – over global warming, anything smacking of carbon regulation, even if it means just honest reporting of carbon footprint, feels like a tough sell.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile or unnecessary. In fact quite the opposite – it is essential, and we face probably some of the toughest times ahead in fighting resistance to substantive change. The push-back to an economy-wide adoption of basic environmental accounting – ultimately the fundamental cost of doing business – comes principally from vested interests entrenched in the “old” economy, where any environmental regulation equates to “lost jobs” or “economic hardship.” It is a false choice. So many use greenwashing simply to placate the public with slick greenwash while spend billions lobbying Congress to stop or weaken effective regulation.

Those stuck in a failed status quo, cynically greenwashing the truth to exploit a marketing trend, must be held accountable.

Will carbon accounting software and standards eliminate greenwashing?

No, at least not entirely.

As with lapses in financial accounting, greenwashing will not likely be completely vanquished, even under strict carbon accounting principals. Like I said earlier in this post, greenwashing is insidious, as the latest greenwash ad campaign from Chevron demonstrates.

But we must work to make it harder and more difficult for such campaigns to gain traction, easier for consumers to spot greenwashing when they see it, and provide business with clear rules and incentives that makes greenwashing unproductive and real sustainability the best choice for forward-thinking companies to thrive in the new economy.

Image credit: Carbon Statement

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 [...]]]> 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.

Lobbying against the environment

By virtue of what we have seen over the past few days, it is clear that the National Restaurant Association is marketing sustainability as a top concern. But that’s just the veneer over which lay the true agenda.

All one need do is follow the money. The National Restaurant Association is the single largest financial contributor in the industry supporting politicians blocking any progress on climate change and energy policy reform.  They are charging $250 for businesses to access a website that gives them a fake certification that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.  And finally, they charging up to $4,000 for businesses to claim to be green in their Conserve pavilion, regardless of how green their products are.

The NRA needs to know that the public and restaurants are smarter than that.  They deserve more than that.  The NRA needs to know that the environment is not for sale.

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 [...]]]>

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?)

In a National Restaurant Association brochure (pdf), potential exhibitors for the Conserve Solution Center are told:

“The Conserve Solutions Center is a newly focused area on the Show floor dedicated specifically to help buyers easily find ‘sustainability related’ products and services to meet operator demand for greener solutions.

Exhibit your products and services to demonstrate how you can help them meet their sustainability objectives.”

Do you have a great green product or service you’d like to show potential customers interested in adopting greater sustainability in their business operations? Great. The Conserve Solutions Center is the place for you.

Are you just interested in taking advantage of the “green angle” to sell more of your products or services to suckers that buy into this “eco” thing? Great. The Conserve Solutions Center is the place for you.

And once again, here is proof:

Our industry-insider source for this story submitted the following four products as “green business solutions” for display at the Conserve Solutions Center:

1. Environmental Catering Tray:
   Pitch: Take a look at our new sustainable catering tray.  Made from a patent pending plastic that is able to fold into a shape that fits easy into garbage cans.  It’s no longer necessary to store catering trays next to the side of a waste basket and hope that it makes its way into the landfill. Our catering trays are an inexpensive way to help your catering needs and the planet.
   Reality: This product is made from virgin plastic. The pitch suggests that the trays can easily be thrown away, and thus somehow will “help the planet.”
2. Eco-Mug:
   Pitch: Made from Plastic: stackable and extra light, can’t be washed.  Can take it with you because of its special top.  Can keep water cold for 12 hours so it’s great for cancelling the need for ice or refrigerators.
   Reality: A mug made from virgin plastic that can’t be washed. This is green how? Because it theoretically saves the need for a few ice cubes, but hardly “cancels the need for ice or refrigerators.”
3. SoGreen Cleaner:
   Pitch: Ultra slim container let’s you take it on the go.  All plastic packaging and lasts for 30 uses.  Special six pack package are recyclable.  Made entirely from natural chlorine and butyl cellusolve.
   Reality: It’s getting pretty blatant. A product packaged in plastic made entirely from Chlorine and butyl cellusolve. Chlorine is a common chemical, and one that carries with it significant risks when used improperly – especially in a restaurant. In any case, it is hardly a new, green solution for business owners. And what exactly is “natural” chlorine? Then there is butyl cellusolve, our second ingrediant. Another fairly common chemical found in cleaning products, but with a definitively shady record. So much so that California has listed it as a hazardous substance. Studies show that butyl cellusolve can cause testicular damage and birth defects in animals. In humans it is known to irritate mucus membranes and cause liver and kidney damage. Most certainly not a “new, green solution.”
4. Hot EarthCup:
   Pitch: 100% Recyclable Polystyrene Foam.  Recylable throughout the U.S.  Insulates Hot Drinks.
   Reality: It’s a Styrofoam cup! The kind that have been clogging landfills for decades, as we discuss in part One. True, polystyrene is technically recyclable, but it is most often not, because the process is slow and normally not cost effective. In fact, most companies, including giants like Wal-Mart, are urging suppliers to use less Styrofoam in packaging and other products. There is little conceivable way a cup made from polystyrene foam is a solution for greater sustainability worthy of exhibition at something called a “Conserve Solutions Center”.

The following graphic of an email thread displays how “Troy,” a prospective exhibitor, asked NRA representative Brad Putz to review the submitted products and confirm that they qualify for inclusion in the Conserve Solutions Center. Brad’s response?

“Troy – Your products are a great fit for the Conserve Solutions Center.”

What does it mean for the sustainability-seeking business owner?

Clearly there are no real standards for a product or service to be included in the Conserve Solutions Center pavilion at the upcoming National Restaurant Association Restaurant Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago. That is not to say there aren’t legitimate green service providers and product manufacturers interested in displaying their wares. It does mean that it doesn’t matter to the National Restaurant Association.

As we’ve previously seen with the Greener Restaurant program in parts One and Two of this series, a program promoting sustainability best practices without benchmarks or verification is the very definition of greenwash.

With the Conserve Solutions Center, it is just more of the same greenwash.

Tomorrow’s conclusion discusses the nature of political lobbying efforts from the National Restaurant Association.

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 [...]]]>

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:

Scenario 1: One step (30 seconds to an NRA certified Greener Restaurant)

The following video shows Green Wallace Wash logging in, then choosing an option indicating the restaurant is creating a “green marketing plan.”  Within seconds a certificate is available for downloaded on their computer. With that certificate also comes additional marketing materials, such as a handy decal to display on your front door (if you have one), and a listing in the NRA’s “Green Dining Finder.”

This video shows Green Wallace Wash taking the story a bit further. Five items are clicked, claiming that local utilities have done an assessment of energy and water use. Remember, this restaurant isn’t real. There is no requirement to verify that such assessments from the utilities were actually done. It took 90 seconds in this case to get a Greener Restaurants certificate from the National Restaurant Association.

Nothing is spared in our third example. Green Wallace Wash is the greenest restaurant possible in the eyes of the National Restaurant Association. In this video, every option is checked: 40 items for Energy Efficiency, 11 for Water Conservation, 18 in Waste Reduction, 10 in Building/Construction, and 11 for Program Administration. Whew! That was exhausting. Five whole minutes to certification – and not one of the 90 items checked are verified, accomplished, or even planned for our imaginary restaurant.

As we plainly see in these three examples, all that is required for endorsement by the National Restaurant’s Greener Restaurant program is payment of a fee and basic computer skills. And with such endorsement comes an assurance from the NRA that a restaurant is planning, pursuing, and implementing sustainability best practices. In fact, it doesn’t even require an actual restaurant. Nonetheless, we see how easy it is to get an instantly downloadable certificate, a listing on the NRA’s “Green Dining Finder,” and other marketing materials, including use of the Greener Restaurant logo on a decal to put on your door informing your eco-monded customers just how green you are – even if you aren’t.

And what if you really are a restaurant owner, interested in actually doing what you – and the NRA – say you’re doing? Good for you. You are doing the right thing.

The problem is that not every owner is as honest as you are, unfortunately making the Greener Restaurant certificate from the NRA all but meaningless.

Recognition vs. certification

By calling Greener Restaurants a “recognition program,” the National Restaurant Association seeks to shift responsibility for benchmarking and verification, while at the same time claiming to retain the authenticity and legitimacy that comes with an honest and transparent  green practices program. How can this be?

In the brief audio clip that follows, Chris Moyer, manager of the NRA’s Greener Restaurant program, says in a recorded telephone conversation that the “push-back” from some complaining there are no benchmarking and verification requirements is answered by the expectation that such methods will be employed “every day by the customer”.

My guess is that many or most of the steps in the Greener Restaurants program are out of sight of the average customer, who would have neither the knowledge nor the tools to understand if best practices were used or not, even if they did have access.

The customer relies on the very sort of endorsement that is both explicit and implicit in an official looking decal pasted on a restaurant’s front door confirming the establishment is a member in good standing of a major trade organization’s green restaurant program.

The NRA can’t have it both ways, “recognition” in this context should minimally imply endorsement, sanction, certification. Some assurance that the statements and claims made are verifiable and real.

At best the argument of recognition vs. certification from Moyer and the NRA is naive, at worst disingenuous and detrimental to the very cause it professes to support.

There are trusting people among us, some own restaurants and some patronize them. You might be one of those people. Once trust is violated, trusting people can become a bit less trusting. Greenwash is eventually exposed for what it is. So when the next green program comes along, no matter how worthy, it is seen as suspect. You’ve been burned before. “It’s all just greenwash.” The result is real change, a transition to real sustainability, becomes that much more difficult.

I don’t think the National Restaurant Association is being naive.

In part three tomorrow, we’ll revisit the Styrofoam cup we introduced in part one, for an interesting twist on the green properties of Styrofoam.

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 [...]]]> 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…

Pushing the right emotional buttons

If you’re concerned about sustainability issues and making greener choices, you’ll probably appreciate the following video. It says all the right things and makes all the right points.

If you’re a little on the fence over whether all the “green” stuff is just  a fad or worth the time (and money), the video might convince you otherwise.

It’s a pretty slick video. It’s where it ultimately leads that is the problem, and is where the journey begins. But like that styrofoam cup (which we will visit again later in this story), the spirit of the message the video conveys will soon be tossed aside and turned against itself in a cynical attempt to turn green into greenwash.

Tomorrow we’ll dig into how the program works.