So we’re starting a new feature on the Understory: the Greenwash of the Week. If you’re not familiar with the term, which comes from “whitewash,” it refers to companies trying to make their products or activities appear environmentally friendly even when they are not. It didn’t take long for corporate PR departments to figure out that it is a lot cheaper to tell people that their practices are environmentally sound than to actually change their behavior (by way of illustration, take a look at this handy explanatory cartoon).

This week’s greenwash? Subaru’s farcical new ad about their “green” plant in Indiana, which they describe as a “role model for the environment” that has been “designated a wildlife habitat.” If that’s not enough for you, check out the longer version here (listen to how the actor says the word “rabbits.”)

Now, first of all, it turns out that the certification scheme that they used to get that designation, the NWF’s backyard habitat program, while laudable, isn’t exactly what I’d call “rigorous.” If you’d like to get your yard certified, fill out the form on this page. (Bonus: see if you can spot any actual wildlife in the Google Earth images of the Subaru plant).

Second, and more importantly, Subaru is a car manufacturer. The plant in which they build their cars, while not insignificant, pales in comparison to the fact that they build cars at all. They don’t make plug-in hybrids, or hybrids of any kind. As this discussion over at Switchboard points out, they reclassified much of their fleet as light trucks to escape emissions standards. The very nature of their product supports unsustainable lifestyles.

Diverting attention from their environmental impact as a whole to the plant where they make their cars is a classic greenwash, and it’s our first Greenwash of the Week.

Lately this blog has been featuring story after story about how big companies are trying to cash in on the public’s growing environmental awareness. We’ve discussed carbon-offsets, plug-in electric vehicles, agrifuels, and how big lumber companies want us to eat trees for dessert.

Well, today on Alternet I saw an outstanding article by Glenn Hurowitz about all of these so-called “green” initiatives and their destructive consequences. The article, originally from The American Prospect does about a good a job as possible connecting all of RAN’s issues around the unifying theme of corporate exploitation.

I think this is a very important lens for us. We need to be very careful when we listen to a corporation whose business is destroying the environment talk about “green” anything.
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Earth Day was last month and magazines made the most of it by making April their “Green Issue”. Here’s my favorite, and least favorite, of the bunch. More »