hackbash

Everybody’s going green. Green is the new black and the next best thing and the big new idea and the dog’s bananas. Green is great.

In 2007 as in no previous year, brand managers appear to have really grasped the green nettle. For some it’s about specific product opportunity to be ‘leveraged’, for others it’s just a PR reality that can no longer be ignored. But whatever the motivation, everybody’s talking about it – and in particular, talking about how green their own activities are.

All good and well. High time too. Jolly good show and all that. But I think us journalists should get strict with the terminology.

Organisations are falling over themselves to say that they’re ‘going green’. They may mean that they’re carbon-offsetting their transatlantic travel or sourcing their food locally or have recently insulated their loft space. There’s not much point in going into the relative merits of those particular actions. To borrow a phrase from one brand that’s done a bit of green homework, every little helps.

But when organisations that have taken a few small steps to modify their own profoundly unsustainable behaviour are labelled ‘green’, by themselves or others, we should put our feet down.

‘Greener’ I’ll accept – in the sense that by taking action you can be greener than you were a moment before, or perhaps greener than the competition. ‘Going green’ too implies a direction of travel. I can live with that.

But look at the few true, undeniable examples of sustainable living – earthship communities, say – and contrast them with the increasingly unselfconscious language of ‘green’ corporate social responsibility and it’s obvious that the green tag is in danger of being stretched beyond meaningful use.

How long before the benefit of the green doubt runs out?

Tags: corporate social responsibility, green, greenwash