As recent interests have arisen in this whole "eco-friendly" trend, we have learned about the term "greenwashing." This term is used when a company will advertise itself as environmentally friendly when, the actions taken, really arent significant enough, they are, in turn, doing more damage to the environment and just distracting attention, or a number of other reasons. So, with these recent interests, Anthony and myself have decided to make the topic of a podcast "Greenwashing," discussing the term, and going over the Sins of Greenwashing. During the discussion I became much more interested to find some facts and case studies showing examples of this. The sad part is, it wasn't hard to find. The one I decided to write about was committed by the Shell gas company in 2007 and info has been provided by the Green Idea Factory blog.
The campaign run by Shell showed a factory emitting, not smoke, but flowers into the air. The explanation of which was that the factory's waste suflur, and CO2 were used to grow flowers and make concrete. Although this sounds good and appears to be re-using materials and keeping pollutants out of the air, the reality was that only 0.5% of the factory's CO2 was used in Dutch greenhouses to grow flower and most of Shell's wasted sulfur was used for tankers to ship fuel. Sea ships happen to be one of the biggest sources of sulfur dioxide pollution. As a result of this campaign and exposing the lie, Shell was nominated for the 'Worst EU Greenwashing Award 2007.'
image from greenideafactory.blogspot.com
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