Greenwash is an increasingly popular trend amongst product advertisement. The 'green pound' is a temptation for advertisers, with the up-rise of consumer awareness and desire for organic and environmentally friendly products, advertisers know that our willingness to pay just that little bit extra for the greener product is growing.
What is greenwashing?
A combination of the green and the term 'whitewashing', green washing is defined as the deceptive use of green marketing in order to promote the concept that a companies products are environmentally friendly.
Advertisers use misleading words and suggestive pictures, or sometimes outright lies in order to fool the consumer into thinking their product has a smaller carbon footprint than their market competition. £17 million was spent on advertising using the words ‘CO2’, ‘carbon’, ‘environmental’, ‘emissions’ or ‘recycle’ from September 2006 to August 2007 alone, a similar search in 2003 revealed a mere £448k was spent.
