Greenwashing is a term that was originally coined by activist Jay Westerveld , when it was realised that hotels purporting to be ‘ saving the environment ’ with their practices were merely urging guests to reuse their towels . In actual fact , while such organisations were claiming environmental concerns had spurred their actions , the real focus was on saving laundry costs - but the climate-skewed PR was beneficial , nonetheless .
“ It ’ s a dangerous form of misleading marketing that distracts from the challenging reality of the climate and biodiversity crises ,” says Nick Underdown , Head of Communications and Campaigns at OpenSeas .
He adds : “ There are multiple different types of greenwashing and , while there is no formal typology for establishing different categories , various attempts have been made , such as the ‘ Seven Sins ’ of greenwashing , which include : hidden tradeoffs ; worshipping false labels ; vagueness ; lack of proof ; irrelevance ; lesser of two evils ; and outright fibbing .”
As individuals become more environmentally conscious , companies
136 May 2022