Toban Black

(By “Mr. Lunch Breath“)

=======

Similar greenwash techniques also are used in other marketing and PR spin.

Here’s one example -

(That poor-quality photo was taken in a subway station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada during the summer. I also saw the same ads elsewhere in Toronto, around that time.)

I’m sure that there are no cell phones out there that can be produced, packaged, shipped, sold, or recycled without negative environmental impacts.  Generally, electronics equipment is made with non-renewable materials; and materials for the devices often will have to be extracted from environments, which still may be inhabited, or which people may have been forcibly displaced from, in other cases.  Pollution from that extraction generally will be one more type of environmental impact around the production of electronics devices (for the time being, at least).

But we are supposed to believe that those “fido” phones are environmentally friendly because the words “nature” and “eco-friendly” are in the ad, with an image of a dog and a tree branch.  It’s hard to imagine a shallower ‘environmental’ message. In other words: that marketing language and imagery obviously is very hollow.

——-

(In a mall in London, Ontario, Canada — during the summer)

Are these “eco-” products supposed to help stop fresh water depletion, and smog, and various other ecological problems?

I expect that the “eco-” label mainly will be taken as a sign that the perfume is completely non-toxic, but there is much more to ecology.

If we set aside from questions about how this perfume may or may not actually help to resolve and prevent ecological problems, there still are pertinent questions about the ecological costs of the perfume. Materials will have to be drawn out of natural environments to produce, to package, to ship, and to sell these products (by powering factories, vehicles, and stores — for instance).  With or without the ‘green’ marketing, there also will be pollution around all of that production and consumption.

I also think that we should very skeptical about the suggestion (or the hint, at least) that this perfume is non-toxic. Maybe these chemicals are relatively benign — when they’re compared with worse perfumes — but I don’t see why anyone should that the chemicals are totally harmless.

Ultimately, since the advertisers don’t explain what “eco”- is supposed to mean, that word probably amounts to next to nothing.

——-

Those words were typed out before I looked for more information about the products.  Now that I have looked into the products more, here is my overall verdict -

At best, these “fido” and “Roots” products are less environmentally harmful — relative to other perfumes and cell phones.
But, as I have been indicating, the “eco” “nature” marketing suggests that the companies are selling a lot more than products that merely aren’t as bad as some other ones; so the marketing definitely is greenwash.

Likewise, the cartoon at the start of this post is about over-inflated claims.

=======

Here are some related posts on this blog -
http://tobanblack.net/blog/?tag=greenwash