Corporate Greenwashing Won't Sell Global Warming

Greenwashing (a portmanteau of "green" and "whitewash") is a term describing the deceptive use of green PR or green marketing in order to promote a misleading perception that a company's policies or products (such as goods or services) are environmentally friendly. The term green sheen has similarly been used to describe organizations that attempt to show that they are adopting practices beneficial to the environment.

Greenwashing may be described as "spin". One example is presenting cost cuts as reductions in use of resources. The term greenwashing was coined by New York environmentalist Jay Westerveld in a 1986 essay regarding the hotel industry's practice of placing placards in each room promoting reuse of towels ostensibly to "save the environment". Westerveld noted that, in most cases, little or no effort toward reducing energy waste was being made by these institutions — as evidenced by the lack of cost reduction this practice effected. Westerveld opined that the actual objective of this "green campaign" on the part of many hoteliers was, in fact, increased profit. Westerveld thus labeled this and other outwardly environmentally conscientious acts with a greater, underlying purpose of profit increase as greenwashing.

Greenpeace also has a cool website highlighting corporate greenwashing: http://stopgreenwash.org/