If you didn’t grow up in Australia in the 1970s you may find it hard to believe the following.
We used to have exquisitely-produced advertisements running on TV from an oil company called “Amoco” which boasted – and even sang about – what it called: “NICE CLEAN PETROL”.
Members of the Australian population – and presumably others beyond our shores – were also subjected to Amoco posters which looked like this:
I was particularly aware of these ads because, as a Sydney high school student, I was an active member of an environmental education organisation for youngsters called “INSPECT”.
“INSPECT” stood for “INquiry into Pollution and Environmental Conservation by the Thoughtful”.
So we INSPECT members were supposedly the Thoughtful – and our potential thoughtfulness was fed by regular inter-school seminars which featured presentations from a parade of visiting environmental experts – and, in the interests of balance, sometimes by those who we viewed as their opponents.
This was a great opportunity to try out an early form of “blowtorch-on-the-belly” questioning on the opponents – such as the time, perhaps a touch cheekily, I asked the completely bald scientist from the now-decommissioned Australian Lucas Heights atomic research reactor whether nuclear radiation caused people’s hair to fall out!
Another of my INSPECT roles was to write the scripts for our newsletter cartoon superhero – “Enviroman” – who was “faster than an ozone-layer-depleting Concorde jet” – and would battle his enemies such as “Pauline Population Producer” and her boyfriend “Virile Val”…always using environmentally-friendly tactics in the process.
INSPECT seminars were planned on Sunday afternoons at the instigation of the dynamic wheel-chair-riding environmental saint – and leading light in the Australian Conservation Foundation – Mrs Fay Sutton from her home beside Coogee Beach.
Among many things we learned to look out for at the seminars was the concept of “greenwashing”.
The “Nice Clean Petrol” ads were held up as classic examples – portraying something as being environmentally wonderful when it was, in fact, exactly the opposite.
And with visiting INSPECT experts alerting us to the multitudinous dangers of rising air pollution levels – and also educating us about something called “global warming” long before it hit mainstream news bulletins – we members used to get collectively outraged by the “Nice Clean Petrol” ads.
In researching for this column I have discovered that the Amoco ads are still out there on the internet – with all their lovely-but-deeply-deceitful greenness still lurking on display for the world to see.
Check out the lush and wholesome images projected in this particular version of the Amoco TV ad.
And be warned that green-washing has expanded considerably around the world since the early days of Amoco’s “nice clean petrol”!
GREENWASHING WITH PLASTIC BOTTLES
Here’s a scarily informative video from a membership platform company based in San Francisco that’s taking a stand against greenwashing.
The video highlights how a bottled water product – originating from a firm operating in Fiji – is portrayed as something that it’s not.
So with advertisements like this, you can see why – in days when human-triggered climate change is becoming increasingly apparent – that conveying truths in media interviews and in other company communication is of critical importance.
In media interview response training sessions which I run, that help company representatives to effectively give accurate interview responses about their environmental and other claims, it’s one of my duties to seek to ensure that everything which the spokespeople say is tested out and will stand up to ‘The Truth Test’ when they go public.
Of course, spreading helpful information about genuinely impressive environmental practices can be a very good thing when done responsibly.
One of the media training projects I was pleased to be involved with was to work with spokespeople for a company which made recyclable drink cartons.
The company’s research had found that some of their customers thought that their cartons could not be fully recycled, when in fact the opposite was the case.
So they needed to focus on doing interviews about how and where the cartons could be recycled – which included leaving them out for approved council recycling schemes to process.
The company never suggested that drinking from their cartons was better – from an environmental perspective – than drinking tap water in real cups that could be re-used almost endlessly.
But the campaign did help ensure that many consumers who bought drinks in the cartons came to know that recycling was possible and was, indeed, highly recommended.
GREENWASHING SPREADS TO NEW AND DIFFERENT FORMS
Despite the increasing awareness of the concept of greenwashing, which has coincided with the current upsurge of media coverage of environmental issues, it’s now taking more forms than just the crass Amoco Petrol and Fiji Water type of approaches.
The environmentally-conscious financial think-tank, Planet Tracker, warns that greenwashing is becoming “increasingly sophisticated”.
A new Planet Tracker report says greenwashing is now adopting a series of distinctively different forms.
These include:
‘Green-Labelling’ – where something is called ‘green’ or “sustainable” when, on proper examination, these terms prove to be misleading
‘Green-Shifting’ – where it’s implied that environmental damage is the consumer’s fault, thereby seeking to shift the blame for any downside away from the manufacturer
‘Green-Lighting’ – focusing on a particular green feature of operations or products to draw attention away from environmentally damaging activities conducted by the firm in other areas e.g. when oil companies put excessive emphasis on their efforts to generate renewable energy to distract from their primary activity
‘Green-Rinsing’ – regularly changing company environmental, social and governance targets before they are achieved
‘Green-Hushing’ – where corporate management teams under-report or hide sustainability credentials to evade investor scrutiny.
MEDIA TRAINING WITH AN ENVIRONMENTALY-RESPONSIBLE APPROACH
Let me know if you’d like to line up a call about how a media training programme – for you and/or your team – can be focused on helping you disseminate helpful accurate environmental information while seeking to avoid any accusations of greenwashing.
Such a programme involves testing out your potential company spokespeople in a way that they can spread agreed accurate responsibly-worded environmental information while standing up more effectively to challenging journalistic questions.
Email me if you’re interested in a keynote at your next conference on the topic of:
“GREENWASHING: HOW TO SPOT IT & HOW TO PLAY NO PART IN IT”
And as a reality check, if you’re ever out in the countryside and you come across a mass gathering of absurdly enthusiastic “nice clean petrol” buyers – surrounded by vibrant greenery in all directions – please send me photographic evidence that such a fantasy scene exists amidst real life…especially if it looks like this!
