Greenwashed out
@ 12:01 pm | by Conor Pope
As the British Petroleum-owned oil rig off the US coast continues to spill tens of thousands of tons of crude oil into the Gulf of Louisiana in what has become the worst environmental disaster in American history, the executives who signed off on the company’s Beyond Petroleum rebranding campaign a decade ago must be cursing.
Critics consistently damned the campaign, which stressed BPs role as Mother Earth’s best friend – it even changed its manly looking shield logo to a cute little flower – as one of the most outrageous examples of greenwashing, the practice which sees a company overstate its green principals in order to cash in on consumer’s concerns over the environment.
But while BP may now have to move beyond its beyond petroleum campaign, at least until the world at large forgets what happened in recent weeks, the growth of the greenwashing business is unlikely to be tempered, not least because businesses recognise that we, as consumers, actually do care what happens to the planet and are willing to spend a little more on environmentally friendly products.
But how much more are you willing to spend on products that do less harm to the planet? 10 per cent? 25? And how can you be sure that the claims made by manufacturers are not entirely bogus?