Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Greenwashing


"The ingenuity of the food manufacturers and markets never cease to amaze me. They can turn any critique into a new way to sell food. You've got to hand it to them."
~Michael Pollan (1)

What is greenwashing? It is the act of misleading the consumer about the environmental practices of the company or the environmental benefits of a product (2). Greenwashing is a capitalist phenomenon. It will only happen in an environment where a company cares what consumers think about a product. When a company senses, from market research or other means, that people want to buy a better product; one that is more environmentally friendly, green or sustainable. The company tries to adapt to what the customer wants in order to retain that customer. Walmart's new sustainability campaign is an example of this phenomenon (3). 

Walmart claims that they want their stores to be more sustainable. In a recent speech in Beijing, Leslie Doch, the executive vice president of corporate affairs and government relations for Walmart, outlined the three sustainable goals that Walmart has made for itself.  Walmart is setting these goals to appease its customers, not because it cares about sustainability.  The goals are: to be powered by 100% renewable energy, to create zero waste, and to sell products that sustain people and the environment (3). Since this is a bog about the food movement, I will focus on the third goal, and how it applies to food.  Walmart claims credit for creating a "Sustainable Product Index" for its products while refraining from dedicating any effort to this index (4). While Walmart might be well meaning, they do not yet have the understanding needed to implement solutions to many of the problems in the system. for example, while speaking to a UC Berkeley class about their efforts, two Walmart executives explained that they intended to help small local farms grow to eventually serve the entire country (5). This is an excellent example of how they have missed the mark on the intent of the food movement. If local farms grow large enough to supply the entire country, they are no longer local by definition. There are many more examples of Walmart's lack of understanding of the food movement that can be found browsing their website (6).

Another way to explain this phenomenon is through co-optation. Co-optation is the act of absorbing a smaller group or movement in order to neutralize the threat it poses (7). Co-optation is a more broad term than greenwashing and might be a better term to use when talking about the food movement. There are things about our current food system that are objectionable and don't involve environmental practices. Co-optation also addresses the strategic decisions of a company, and allows for some positive impacts to be considered. Co-optation, as well as greenwashing, compromises the goals of the movement that it is co-opting, but it does not altogether contradict it. While compromise is, for some, not an acceptable final result, it is often a necessary temporary outcome. 

Fair trade coffee provides a great example of co-optation rather than greenwashing because it involves paying farm workers a living wage, not protecting the environment. There were a growing number of people who began to promote fair trade coffee in the late 1990s (8). Starbucks saw that it faced a potential loss of customers because of this movement. So what did it do? "The company agreed to sell fair trade certified coffee at all 2,300 of its U. S. cafes, albeit initially purchasing less than 1 percent of its overall supply" (8, page 94). This quote exemplifies the problem with co-optation, as well as with greenwashing. Starbucks purchased just enough fair trade coffee to appease its customers and not enough to fix the problem in the system. While this action did make a step towards the ultimate goal of the fair trade coffee movement, it by no means accomplished it. Starbucks' goal was not to be fair and pay coffee growers better, it was to appease their customers. If Starbucks customers stop caring about fair trade standards, Starbucks will likely stop selling fair trade coffee. On the other hand if the movement continues to grow, and eventually everyone only wants fair trade coffee, Starbucks would likely sell only fair trade coffee. 

There can be some amount of truth and benefit to greenwashing and co-optation. While the goal of Starbucks and Walmart is to increase their profits, they are doing some good along the way. Walmart has nearly doubled its sales of local produce (6). It has also given much needed funding to various organizations that are active in the food movement including Will Allen's Growing Power (9), and Cooking Matters (10). Regardless of why Walmart chose to fund these organizations, it is helping some fantastic organizations at a time when help is very much needed. When "voting with our dollar" we need to keep in mind the positive things that can come from greenwashing and co-optation as well as the negative. Starbucks goal may not have been to fix the coffee production system, but they took a small action that made a tremendous difference in many peoples' lives by selling some fair trade coffee (8). We shouldn't refrain from supporting the small, positive actions that a corporation takes simply because we question its motives. If we want to "vote with our dollar" we should support these small steps where there are no good alternatives.  

My last point is a cautionary one. As always, be sure that you are paying attention to what you are buying. Many people see labels that say "natural", or any number of other greenwashed phrases, and think that they are buying a better product simply because it has those words on the label. You should always try to figure out what the meaning behind the words is. Sometimes the words are a distraction, and other times they are an exaggeration.  Here is an example of distraction: the next time you are in your grocery store, look in the candy isle and find a candy that says "fat free" on the label.  Now look at the amount of sugar that is in that same candy.  While these candies may not contain fat, they are by no means good for you to eat. On the front of a bag of Swedish Fish, a candy which I happen to love, it says "A Fat Free Food", arguably with the intent to make the customer feel better about eating them.  When we examine their nutritional facts, however, we see that there are 30 grams of sugar in just 7 pieces of this candy.  In fact, when we look at the ingredients, we see that this candy is almost entirely made of sugar (11).  This is an example of the negative side of co-optation.  Don't let this type of deceptive advertising change your buying habits.  

Walmart provides an example of exaggeration: Walmart says that it doubled the amount of local produce it sells in 2011, but they define "local" as within the same state (6). In larger states like California, produce can travel more than 700 miles without leaving the state.  When we think of something local, we often assume that it has traveled less than 700 miles.  While Walmart is not being blatantly dishonest or even distracting you with information that is irrelevant, it is invoking an image of local that is not always the result of their standards.  But even though this produce wasn't necessarily grown by your next door neighbor, it is more local and sustainably sourced than if it were grown on the other side of the country.

The moral of the story is this: Greenwashing can lead to some positive impacts, but it should be constantly questioned. If you think something might be a form of greenwashing or co-optation, be skeptical and find out exactly what the benefits are before you make a decision to support it or not. If you don't have access to something more sustainable, supporting a greenwashed item is often better for the environment and the food system than supporting one that is not.

"While radical sustainability is great, given how unsustainable our food system is right now, even small steps toward a sustainable food system could make things dramatically better."
~Inspired by Pankaj Ghemawat (12)


(1) http://www.chelseagreen.com/content/greenwashing-alert-frito-lay-co-opts-local-food-movement-and-more-on-the-way/
(2) http://stopgreenwash.org/
(3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo7PK0Xl8gM
(4) http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2009/07/16/walmart-announces-sustainable-product-index
(5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2V2XGaaHP0&feature=edu&list=PL2C1E1CBFE689113F
(6) http://corporate.walmart.com/global-responsibility/environment-sustainability/sustainable-agriculture
(7) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-option
(8) Jaffee, D. (2012). Weak coffee: Certification and co-optation in the fair trade movement. Social Problems, 59(1), 94-116. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/sp.2012.59.1.94
(9) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tolAdV3RZEE
(10) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpGeXjCUXZM&feature=relmfu
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