2005 Greenwashing Top Ten List For US Released

[hatrack]

"The Green Life today released "Don't Be Fooled: America's Ten Worst Greenwashers," a report designed to help values-based consumers, socially responsible investors and government officials make decisions based on accurate environmental information.

"Don't Be Fooled" documents the scope, content and impact of the nation's most egregious cases of greenwash in marketing and public relations. Six companies, three trade associations and one government agency were selected for the report based on comparisons of their environmental rhetoric to the reality of their environmental performance.

"These greenwashers account for a major share of a mounting obstacle to sustainability," said Geoffrey Johnson, Program Coordinator of The Green Life. "Greenwash has grown along with the environmental awareness it aims to exploit. More Americans than ever are trying to make environmentally responsible choices, but by blurring the boundaries between helpful and damaging products and companies, greenwash makes our choices difficult."

Ford Motor Company tops the report's list for its current advertising campaign illustrating "The Greening of the Blue Oval." The campaign highlights the Escape Hybrid and the eco-friendly River Rouge factory as symbols of Ford's overall environmental commitment, though hybrids represent just one-half of one percent of Ford's annual sales, or roughly one-quarter the number of F-150s with worst-in-class fuel economy that are made each month beneath River Rouge's vegetation-covered roof.

America's second-worst greenwasher is BP. The company's print and television ads exaggerate its advancement "beyond petroleum." In 2003, BP's fossil-fuel products emitted 1,298 million tons of carbon dioxide, while its solar panels sold that same year will save just 0.5 million tons over their lifetime.

Third place goes to the United States Forest Service, which paid a public relations firm $113,000 of taxpayer funds to develop "Forests With A Future," promoting revisions to the Sierra Nevada Framework that will raise annual timber removal along California's eastern edge from 111 million board feet to 330 million board feet."

EDIT

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_19917.shtml

[fighttotheend]

1. That doesn't surprise me

As I was reading on MSN news, the EPA officials were caught be dishonest when it came to environmental issues. In the one case they lied about the number of wildlife in a particular areas so that developers could destroy the land and develop it. I ask where does the corruption stop.

[rodeodance]

2. it does not stop-very few are held accountable in this Adm-most are in

fact promoted!!

....I ask where does the corruption stop.