To: Clea Gray
Subject: Re: Sony Europe and WWF launch “Open Planet Ideas”

So, Clea, what Sony and WWF are proposing is that all Sony products sold will now have a positive effect on the environment. Yes?

I’m slightly surprised that any high complexity technology that relies on an industrial infrastructure could ever be environmentally friendly, but I’m willing to listen if you could explain the theory.

Thanks

Keith

Keith: “The implication being that something like a Playstation – the function of which, at the lowest level, is to make Sony money; but at a more superficial level, to entertain people, or rather distract them from the real world – can have a net environmental benefit. I would be keen to see Sony’s calculations, as to this net benefit.”

And to be honest, I do wonder how much money and power the WWF gets out of this partnership, considering the fact that their CEO makes $465,427 per year – an insane amount of money for a charitable organization to pay out for leadership. With that kind of pay scale, they must not be hurting for donations, heh? Guess you have to take the all the money you can from questionable partnerships when you can get it, since you have to pay such huge salaries. They are known as one of the most conservative enviro organizations out there and have taken on an “increasingly dubious role in greenwashing the operations of global agribusiness“. With time, they are starting to sound more and more like an organization interested in protecting their financial accounts and not the environment.

I highly recommend you go read Keith’s entire post about Sony and the WWF, and be sure not to miss his recorded phone call with the PR rep. He’s still waiting to hear back from them… hope he’s not holding his breath.

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Please, Proctor & Gamble, tell me how any of the stuff that you sell is in any way, shape, or form “Future Friendly”. I would love to hear the rationalization…

Please don’t miss the Change.org petitions over on the right hand side of the site. Topics like offshore oil drilling and the Climate Bill are awaiting your support!

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4. Greenwash Of The Week: Charmin Megaroll Toilet Paper.

Please, Proctor & Gamble, tell me how any of the stuff that you sell is in any way, shape, or form “Future Friendly”. I would love to hear the rationalization…

Please don’t miss the Change.org petitions over on the right hand side of the site. Topics like offshore oil drilling and the Climate Bill are awaiting your support!

You may also enjoy:

1. Greenwash Of The Week: ‘Green Smoke’ Eco-Friendly Cigarettes.
2. Greenwash Of The Week: Climate-Friendly Food Labels.
3. Greenwash Of The Week: Scott Green Naturals Paper Towels.
4. Greenwash Of The Week: Charmin Megaroll Toilet Paper.

Clorox – Well, we know bleach isn’t good for us or the earth, right? Well, that doesn’t stop Clorox from advertising bleach as a healthy way to get rid of germs, attending green conferences, and testing their products on animals. Bleach production and use releases dioxin, furans and other organochlorines into the air, and studies have shown a relationship between dioxin exposure and cancer, birth defects, and developmental/reproductive disorders. Add in the damage that it does to the animals they test on, and well – you know the rest.

S.C. Johnson - A “family” company, or so they say. All those ads on TV touting how eco-friendly they are mean absolutely nothing when they make products like Pledge, Off!, Glade, Raid, Windex, Scrubbing Bubbles, and Drano, and also continue to test these products on animals. Another attendee of Sustainable Brands right there.

Unilever – This one hurts, as I loved Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, but I won’t buy it anymore. Unilever bought the company in 2000, and a recent article pointed out that the “natural” ingredients in their ice cream may not be anything of the sort. Is this the parent company stepping in to cut costs on ingredients? Who knows. But throw in the fact that their sustainability bragging sheet says that “15% of our global purchases of tea and palm oil (are) from sustainable sources” (that’s not anything to brag about, guys – 15%?) and that they also continue to test on animals, and you can see the widening gap between what they say they care about and what they actually do about it.

There are many more companies out there who continue to test their products on animals – Clairol, Dial, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oreal, Max Factor, Olay, Pantene, Ponds, and Arm & Hammer to name just a few. If you want to take a look at who else is on the list, you can head over to Caring Consumer and search through their lists of companies that do and that do not test their products on animals. Thankfully, there are way more companies on the DO NOT TEST list, but sadly there are still many on the DO TEST list… and some of these advertise themselves as green and sustainable (and attend sustainability conferences) to the masses. Awareness of these policies is key to making informed decisions and not falling for the factually incorrect marketing campaigns and slogans they want us to believe.

Please don’t miss the Change.org petitions over on the right hand side of the site. Topics like offshore oil drilling and the Climate Bill are awaiting your support!

You may also enjoy:

1. Greenwash Of The Week: Building Credibility & Avoiding Greenwash
2. The Black List: The 30 Least Transparent Companies.
3. How To Spot Household Cleaners Not Tested On Animals.
4. Why Buy Toxic Products When There Are Healthier Alternatives?
5. Greenwash Of The Week: Sustainable Brands 2010.

Clorox – Well, we know bleach isn’t good for us or the earth, right? Well, that doesn’t stop Clorox from advertising bleach as a healthy way to get rid of germs, attending green conferences, and testing their products on animals. Bleach production and use releases dioxin, furans and other organochlorines into the air, and studies have shown a relationship between dioxin exposure and cancer, birth defects, and developmental/reproductive disorders. Add in the damage that it does to the animals they test on, and well – you know the rest.

S.C. Johnson - A “family” company, or so they say. All those ads on TV touting how eco-friendly they are mean absolutely nothing when they make products like Pledge, Off!, Glade, Raid, Windex, Scrubbing Bubbles, and Drano, and also continue to test these products on animals. Another attendee of Sustainable Brands right there.

Unilever – This one hurts, as I loved Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, but I won’t buy it anymore. Unilever bought the company in 2000, and a recent article pointed out that the “natural” ingredients in their ice cream may not be anything of the sort. Is this the parent company stepping in to cut costs on ingredients? Who knows. But throw in the fact that their sustainability bragging sheet says that “15% of our global purchases of tea and palm oil (are) from sustainable sources” (that’s not anything to brag about, guys – 15%?) and that they also continue to test on animals, and you can see the widening gap between what they say they care about and what they actually do about it.

There are many more companies out there who continue to test their products on animals – Clairol, Dial, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oreal, Max Factor, Olay, Pantene, Ponds, and Arm & Hammer to name just a few. If you want to take a look at who else is on the list, you can head over to Caring Consumer and search through their lists of companies that do and that do not test their products on animals. Thankfully, there are way more companies on the DO NOT TEST list, but sadly there are still many on the DO TEST list… and some of these advertise themselves as green and sustainable (and attend sustainability conferences) to the masses. Awareness of these policies is key to making informed decisions and not falling for the factually incorrect marketing campaigns and slogans they want us to believe.

Please don’t miss the Change.org petitions over on the right hand side of the site. Topics like offshore oil drilling and the Climate Bill are awaiting your support!

You may also enjoy:

1. Greenwash Of The Week: Building Credibility & Avoiding Greenwash
2. The Black List: The 30 Least Transparent Companies.
3. How To Spot Household Cleaners Not Tested On Animals.
4. Why Buy Toxic Products When There Are Healthier Alternatives?
5. Greenwash Of The Week: Sustainable Brands 2010.

While plenty of companies make their paper towels from 100% recycled paper fiber (Seventh Generation and Marcal come immediately to mind), Kimberly-Clark continues to cut down trees to provide paper towels for use around the home. Something in this equation doesn’t equal “green done right”, but maybe it’s just me. After all, it’s not like Kimberly-Clark has been the subject of the Greenwash of the Week before, right?

As an aside, I highly recommend you ditch the paper towels all together – I have a drawer full of rags that I use and wash each week that work just fine.

Please don’t miss the Change.org petitions over on the right hand side of the site. Topics like offshore oil drilling and the Climate Bill are awaiting your support!

You may also enjoy:

1. Greenwash Of The Week: Charmin Megaroll Toilet Paper.
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This fall, Crystal Cruises’ guests have the opportunity to give back and see Valetta, Malta from a different point of view on award-winning Crystal Serenity voyages this fall. A brand new Crystal Adventure invites travelers to “Go Green” in Malta, by planting trees in the island’s only national park, donating food at a local charity and learning eco-conscious planting and harvesting practices at a local organic farm.

Sure, it sounds good on the surface – who doesn’t think that planting trees in a national park, donating food to a charity, and learning organic farming isn’t a good thing? But at what cost do this “going green” come at? As I stated above, 30,000 gallons of human waste and 255,000 gallons of non-sewage gray water is generated each day by an average cruise ship. However, that’s not all. For every day they are cruising, they also generate:

• Seven tons of garbage and solid waste
• 15 gallons of toxic chemicals
• 37,000 gallons of oily bilge water
• Air pollutants equivalent to12,000 automobiles
• Hundreds of thousands of gallons of ballast water, which contains diseases, bacteria and invasive species from foreign ports

That’s per day. While basically any vacation-oriented activity involving travel is not exactly good for the environment, there is a difference between a cruise company just doing what it does best – cruise – without excuses, and a cruise company trying to trick people into thinking that cruising could ever possibly be “green”. It cannot, same as flying cannot ever be green. So don’t fall for this kind of Greenwash marketing. If you want to cruise, take a cruise. But don’t do it because they cruise company tells you it’s eco-friendly, as it’s a lie.

Please don’t miss the Change.org petitions over on the right hand side of the site. Topics like offshore oil drilling and the Climate Bill are awaiting your support!

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I don’t really know what else to say. “Green Smoke for Green Future”? Sure, whatever guys…

Please don’t miss the Change.org petitions over on the right hand side of the site. Topics like offshore oil drilling and the Climate Bill are awaiting your support!

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Dear Pablo: I am seeing more and more hotels claiming to be “green.” What exactly makes a hotel green?

Virtually every hotel these days has signs asking you to hang your towel if you want to use it again or leave it on the floor if you don’t. This does not make it a green hotel though, it just makes common sense. According to Project Planet InterContinental Hotels estimates that it saves alm… Read the full story on TreeHugger

Here’s an excerpt of the initial press release from Avon:

Avon Products, Inc. has launched Hello Green Tomorrow, a unique global grassroots mobilization in over 65 countries worldwide. The first goal of this environmental movement is to restore trees in the Atlantic Rainforest, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy.

- With just $1 per tree, you can join this unique global mobilization and help save the Atlantic Rainforest for today and for the next generation.
- Imagine breathing with only seven percent of your lungs. The Atlantic Rainforest in South America helps serve as the “lungs of the earth,” but only seven percent remains, making it one of the world’s most critically endangered ecosystems. This is important to all of us, wherever we live.
- As the “lungs of the earth”, tropical forests such as the Atlantic Rainforest are vital to our survival. Rainforests help reduce pollution, mitigate climate change, and support a vast array of wildlife, including many species found nowhere else. Already 93% of the Atlantic Rainforest has been destroyed, but with just one dollar, you can help us restore it.

Sounds good, right? I mean, who doesn’t want to help out the rainforest by donating $1! However, Keith wrote them back and asked a pretty simple question:

Dear Jennifer

Could you please tell me if Avon use palm oil in any of their products?

Thank you

Keith

Jennifer then replied:

Hi Keith,

I hope this finds you well. Hello Green Tomorrow is a cause initiative to help rebuild the Atlantic Rainforest – there is no product tie-in.

Well, that certainly is strange… no product tie-in even though the Avon brand is all over the press release. Hmm. Could that be because Avon still uses palm oil in their products, the very ingredient that the harvesting of is a leading cause of the destruction of the rainforest? And here they are asking for a donation to help save it, while with their other hand they are contributing to it’s demise? So, Keith writes them back:

You cannot separate the initiative from the sponsor – not only are Avon involved in this, they founded Hello Green Tomorrow, so any hypocrisy lies squarely on their doorstep.

Yes, it appears Avon do use palm oil: http://www.avon.com/1/1/512-mark-dew-drenched-moisturlicious-lip-color.html

“contains shea butter and palm oil to help moisturize and protect”.

Gosh, rainforest destruction so lips can be kept nice and moist!

Head on over to The Unsuitablog to read all the emails back and forth and more of Keith’s dissection – you won’t be sorry.

Please don’t miss the Change.org petitions over on the right hand side of the site. Topics like offshore oil drilling and the Climate Bill are awaiting your support!

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1. Greenwash Of The Week: Cadbury’s ‘Green Palm Oil’ Claim.
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5. Greenwash Of The Week: Double-Header Edition.