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 Conservewebsite 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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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
It’s likely you’ve seen this Chevron commercial on TV, or something similar. Endearing pictures of everyday people going about their lives, and Chevron helping to lead them into the future. There is nothing necessarily wrong with an oil giant like Chevron presenting themselves as part of the solution – at least potentially. I think it is vital that fossil fuel companies bring to bear their enormous resources on developing clean energy. But the total picture must be considered, and the good balanced with the bad. Then the picture changes…
– Editor’s note: this post is a followup to our recent post on the “Fur is Green” campaign by the Fur Council of Canada –
It’s really not worth the rebuttal, but I just can’t help but comment on the “Fur is Green” campaign by The Fur Council of Canada. Their desperation to appear hip, timely or relevant couldn’t be more transparent.
Claiming that fur and fur-trimmed products are “green”, “ecological”, or “environmental” is the equivalent of saying, “have a nice day”. There are no restrictions or regulations on using these terms and the fur industry has no independent endorsement or certification of its so-called commitment to the environment or “eco” practices.
Monsanto is claiming their sustainable agriculture motives which are completely transparent to anyone who listens to farmers. Watch this video first, then spit up a little in your mouth when you realize the utter hypocrisy demonstrated by this claim.
Monsanto streamrolls farmers and monopolizes agricultural markets to make the most profit possible, rather than cultivating their customers’ businesses as if they were a crop.
They’re right about the need to increase food production. They’re wrong that genetically engineering crops and aggressively spreading them to un-wanting communities.
When will large industry realize you can’t just put up a fancy website and change the world.
Follow along as a restaurant called “Green Wallace Wash” (not a real restaurant) gets their green credentials from the National Restaurant Association.
Fake certification program results in confusion and misrepresentation
Georgia-Pacific claims their “
Guest post by Lesley Fox
