Source: GreenwashingIndex.com
Greenwashing is the spin you see organizations put on their so-called eco-friendly products and services to make you feel as if they give a hoot.
These companies actually spend more on green marketing, saying "Look! We're green." than they spend on being environmentally sound.
Greenwashing strategies can be as simple as changing the name of a product to sound more natural despite being laden with chemicals to massive green advertising campaigns deliberately misleading or even lying to you.
It could be as simple as using a green box. We may say pish posh I'll never fall for that, but incredibly we do. Some some subconscious eco-friendly psychological level we all probably feel good about buying those green-looking, feeling and sounding products. Oh, we may know better deep down, but in the moment it is easy to reason a purchase only to regret it later.
I love Victoria Wood! This is from one of her shows.
Mitsubishi lying to us for the past 25 years about fuel efficiency data.
"Customers bought our cars based on incorrect fuel-economy data," President Tetsuro Aikawa told reporters during a press conference on Tuesday. "I can't help but apologise."
Do you think anyone who bought Mitsubishi based on their green marketing lies is going to accept that apology? Not bloody likely.
The ultimate spin and example of just how far an industry will go to try and change their image would be the coal industry. Won't go into all the details here. You can read The Guardian article or National Geographic for more information on this lunacy.
Source: CleanEnergy.org
However, a closer to home story could be this one. Canada's largest coffee chains are misleading customers about what happens to cups collected in their in-store recycling bins.
A CBC Marketplace investigation reveals that many paper cups collected by some Toronto Starbucks and Tim Hortons for recycling are sent to landfill, not to a recycling plant as many may believe.
Bringing your own cup to these establishments isn't as easy as getting a Gaia Guy bamboo toothbrush into your daily routine but still doable, right? Especially, after reading that those green marketing recycling programs are literally complete rubbish.
I will say that your environmental concerns; be they for renewable resources, only organic, or zero waste I do take them all to heart, because they are my concerns too! I am doing my best to provide eco-friendly goods that are authentic and fairly priced so you can feel good about supporting Gaia Guy and all that it stands for.
A big thank you to all the great people who have purchased an eco-friendly good from https://www.GaiaGuy.com, our etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/hiGaiaGuy and our listings on Amazon.