Reading 11 Flashcards
The rise of green consumerism in the late 1980s prompted a surge of
advertisements and labels claiming environmental benefits. Green imagery was used to sell products.
The nuclear energy industry is an example of an industry that has jumped on the environmental bandwagon to improve its image. In one advertisement, the USA Council for Energy Awareness pictured a family of birds, and states, ‘Every year, the ospreys return to their wildlife-preserve around the nuclear electric plant near Waterford, Connecticut, where nesting platforms have been built for them by the local utility. It’s one more example of how peacefully nuclear energy coexists with the environment.’ The message is … and what hasnt been said
that the nuclear power plant does not pollute the air or produce greenhouse gases. No mention is made of the environmental and health problems surrounding extraction of uranium, nuclear accidents or disposal of nuclear wastes.
Why does greenwash matter?
Well not only are marketers shamelessly exploiting people with genuine environmental concerns, they are also avoiding the need to make genuine environmental improvements and innovations. They are also obscuring those companies that do actually go those extra green yards.
sin of irrelevance
These are claims that do not give real information about the environmental credentials of a product, for example claiming to be CFC-free, when all products are because that is required by law.
n contrast, most environmentalists argue that the consumer’s first priority should be to buy less, to ask ‘Do I really need this product?’. Yet green advertising encourages us to …
buy more, by suggesting we should buy a certain product because it is good for the environment. Yet, increasing numbers of environmental groups have resorted to green consumerism to increase their funds. The Australian Conservation Foundation, The Wilderness Society and Greenpeace all market environmental goods fairly aggressively in shops and by mail.
Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off
A claim suggesting that a product is ‘green’ based on a narrow set of attributes without attention to other important environmental issues. Paper, for example, is not necessarily environmentally-preferable just because it comes from a sustainably-harvested forest. Other important environmental issues in the paper-making process, such as greenhouse gas emissions, or chlorine use in bleaching may be equally important.
People might feel righteous using unleaded fuel. But …
overuse of private motor vehicles, even using unleaded fuel, is still harmful to the environment.
Ian Grayson argued that unnecessary consumption is often forced on people. Our systems of housing and transportation are often premised on private cars and small families.
Those who prefer public transport are often severely inconvenienced or do not have a realistic choice about whether or not to buy and use a car.
n September 1991, Deirdre Macken reported in the Sydney Morning Herald that between 1989 and 1990 the number of people prepared to buy environmentally friendly products dropped from 33 per cent to 17 per cent. and
Environmentally damaging products, such as plastic shopping bags, were still being used as much as ever, and electricity and petrol use had increased.
Some environmentalists argue that there is no point concentrating on individual products, since it is the whole economic system that is wasteful. Producers must go on selling goods, whether or not they have saturated the market, in order to stay in business. Some encourage the …
replacement of those goods by attempting to make them obsolescent. Obsolescence can occur when an item breaks in a short period of time, when new models are brought out that perform better than the old ones, or when fashion changes make perfectly serviceable and functional items undesirable. This means that economic growth and the viability of many companies is dependent on waste.
