Check out this post over at Garden Rant about the successful campaign to have TruGreen (formerly Chemlawn) dropped as a sponsor of Earth Day.

I guess today even chemical companies want to be branded green, even if they aren’t. Green marketing is blossoming. It isn’t always so clear to me what makes a green product green, though.

We sometimes buy a so-called green dish-soap. I have to confess I’ve never taken a close look at the label. I’ll do that right now….

OK, the stuff is called natureclean. It says it’s 95% natural Lavender and Tea Tree dishwashing liquid (I like the smell). There’s a Canadian flag on the front and a picture of a child. Let’s look at the back. It says it’s alcohol ethoxylate free (whatever that is) and it’s biodegradable. In fact it says that all surfactants are readily biodegradable as per OECD test #310D. Well, that sounds pretty official, doesn’t it? And, it’s not tested on animals. Is it a good product? Who knows?  Maybe it is.

With enough green marketing, soon enough, everything will be green.

By the way, the term greenwashing was coined by NY environmentalist Jay Westerveld back in the 80s. The context was the practice in the hotel industry putting green cards in rooms promoting the reuse of towels to help the environment. Turns out it increased profits too by reducing the laundry bill.