What is greenwashing?

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Over the course of the 20th century, capitalism preserved its momentum by moulding the ordinary person into a consumer. Using advertising to encourage in people the ravenous hunger for purchasing more stuff and the accompanying feeling of hollowness and a need for more and more.

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This is most powerfully illustrated by one of the original source about marketing from between the world wars by Edward Bernays, a landmark book called Propaganda published in 1928. This book would be instrumental for setting in train the agenda for economic growth in the West in the 20th Century.

WHO considers marketing by the palm oil industry to be akin to tobacco and alcohol marketing

Marketing of palm oil does not occur in the traditional sense. Responding to a backlash against accusations of poor environmental and labour practices, the industry has sought to portray its products as sustainable, while highlighting the contribution to poverty alleviation.
There is also a mutual benefit for the palm oil and processed food industry, with the latter targeting advertisements for ultra-processed foods towards children (similar to efforts by the tobacco and alcohol industries in targeting children and adolescents) and the palm oil refining industry benefiting from the corresponding increase in sales of foods containing palm oil.

The palm oil industry and noncommunicable diseases, (2019),
Sowmya Kadandale, a Robert Martenb & Richard Smith.
World Health Organisation Bulletin.

World Organisation of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) Guide for promoting sustainable palm oil

Ferrero wins appeal as Belgian court tells Delhaize to stop saying #palmoil free is healthier & more sustainable https://t.co/B8wTVLuRSX pic.twitter.com/mH4Gr8d39b

— FoodNavigator.com (@FoodNavigator) June 7, 2017

Sustainability is meaningless, it’s time for a new enlightenment

Effectively, sustainability became the main ingredient of a “having your cake and eating it” ideology. The environment, and its ecological systems, were deemed to be sustained while equally economic development could continue apace.

But if sustainable development had delivered on its promise, humanity would now not be facing the crisis we call climate change.

Greenwashing solves nothing.

What was, and is, actually needed is the opposite of what has been promoted in order to try to maintain the economic status quo.

Dr Toni Fry, Griffith University ‘Sustainability is meaningless, it’s time for a new enlightenment, The Conversation.

Research into how to influence voluntary standards using expert knowledge

“The ability of developing countries, especially small-scale actors within them, to shape standard setting and management to their advantage depends not only on overcoming important structural differences…but also on more subtle games. These include promoting the enrolment of one expert group or kind of expert knowledge over another, using specific formats of negotiation, and legitimating particular modes of engagement over others.”

Voluntary standards, expert knowledge and the governance of sustainability networks. (2013), Ponte, S. & Cheyns, E. Glob. Netw. 13, 459–477

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The Vice President of the European Parliament Heidi Hautala does not trust the RSPO’s false and weak promise of “sustainable” palm oil

She replies to my conversation on Twitter to advise of this…

Is it possible to design an eco-label without greenwashing?

In his book ‘Beyond Greenwash’ Hamish Van Der Ven somewhat naively sets out to answer that question.

Naive because embedded within capitalism is the drive towards exponential growth and the ecosystems and resources of our planet are finite – which makes it naive to think that we can continue to labour under the same system, yet expect a different result.

Still Van Der Ven has some valid insights to share here about how a eco-label could theoretically be designed to be free from greenwashing.

An eco-label without greenwashing has yet to materialise. This is because our current economic system does not consider ‘value’ to include: human rights, animal rights, the beauty of unspoiled nature and forests left intact – the only way the current system quantifies ‘value’ is financial growth. The virtue-signalling about doing the right thing and improving human rights, animal rights, environmental sustainability is greenwashing. If businesses DID care, these issues would have been sorted. Instead, they provide consumers with empty words and promises.

Extract below from ‘What’s in a label? Separating credible eco-labels from “greenwash” – Corporate Knights, 2021

Is it transparent?

Dubious eco-labels keep everything offline or hidden behind pay walls; credible eco-labels make their information freely available online, including information around breaches of rules and regulations and their resolutions, governance and funding.

Is it independent?

• Consumers and procurement professionals should be wary of self-awarded ecolabels. Instead seek out ecolabels from a credible third-party organisation.
• There should also be independence between the organisation that sets the standard and the organization that audits compliance against its criteria. This is important for preventing a conflict of interest.
• Standard-setters generally receive revenues based on how widely their eco-labels are used. An eco-labeling organization that checks compliance against its own standard has an incentive to overlook non-compliances and set a lower bar for achievement.

Is it inclusive?

Do all stakeholders get a say in decision-making? If an eco-label promotes sustainable coffee production, then it should involve coffee farmers, scientists, processers, NGOs, and community members (amongst others) in standard-setting.