Survey: 'Green' tag should be banished

Green fatigue is now pervasive.

Numerous environment-theme blogs and news sites over the past week have pointed to a statement put out by Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., calling for the demise of all "green" labeling.

Since 1975, the university has been taking nominations for words that need to be banned. The top vote getters for 2008 were "green" and "going green." Also on the black list were the terms carbon footprint and carbon offset.

(Credit: TerraChoice)

One word-banning nominator, Ed Hardiman from Bristow, Va., summed up his lack of patience nicely: "If I see one more corporation declare itself 'green,' I'm going to start burning tires in my backyard."

Web site TreeHugger declares that the term green is "barely hanging on," while Willie Brent at his Mr. Cleantech blog speculates that many media companies will need to rethink their naming.

As a person who helped name the CNET Green Tech blog, I suppose I have something to answer for here.

And clearly, there are some real abuses. TreeHugger points to how the concrete industry--source of one of the most polluting industrial processes--has tried to paint itself green and sustainable.

Aggressive green marketing--also known as greenwashing--isn't very helpful to consumers who actually care about making environmentally conscious buying decisions.

But the answer isn't to ban the word green. Consumers simply need to be as savvy as they can and seek out as much information they can. Businesses should also get used to disclosing more--those with less to hide come out looking better.

Greenpeace puts out an electronics guide every year in which it drills down into a number of factors--use of toxics, recycling, carbon emissions, and corporate disclosures.

The same should hold true in other product categories--the more detail, the better. And this is where standards and certifications like Energy Star can really help.

For this to work, journalists and Web writers need to be as specific as possible in the terms they use, and try to give an environmental profile of different technologies.

After all, things aren't often black-and-white. There are many shades to being green.

[brightstarbeing]

Go Kermit Go!

While it's not directly related to tech, I think they should have (if they didn't already) added "Organic."

Take Wholefoods for example.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Wholefoods - it's a great business model: leverage on morals (and, to a large degree, the idea of "status"). But if you're a consumer who's really in it for renewable energy, truly organic farming, humane work conditions, etc., you have to be extraordinarily careful. Sometimes reading labels just isn't enough. It sure would be great to see how a product is deconstructed down to raw materials, sourcing, and the process in which those raw materials are acquired, but at the end of the day would we really have the stomach to buy anything? Would we care? (Has/would knowledge that cobalt is the new "blood diamond" in Africa drive Wii/PS3/cellphone/etc. sales down?)

I have to admit Wholefoods has done some great marketing/branding. I could ask 10 friends and all 10 would say Wholefoods is about safer, organic (albeit pricier) produce. Actions speak louder than words. The new Wholefoods "upgrade" they've opened up (it feels like you're almost stepping into a Costco-Safeway hybrid - almost) has a full parking lots almost anytime of day, any day of the week.

*(woops I meant "coltan" XD)

[meworkingman]

Excuse my abruptness, but I gotta call BS on this. Like it or not, the "green" tag is attached in people's minds to the "global warming" hoax (and "green" crusaders have no one to blame but themselves for that). The reason people are sick of hearing the "green" term thrown around is because they are recognizing more and more that global warming "science" is based on nothing more than horribly inaccurate computer models that have yet to predict a correct global average temperature, even in hindsight.

Face it, "green" is tied to "carbon footprint" (another term people want banned) and people are realizing that carbon dioxide is *not* a pollutant as the huckster AlGore would have us believe but a gas that is required for life on earth. As the "green" fanatics become shriller, people are seeing through the smoke (carbon-free of course) and this survey demonstrates that.

[biffhenerson]

Ditto

[cp256]

"Consumers simply need to be as savvy as they can and seek out as much information they can." That's all well and good to say, but honestly, what percentage of folks _really_ research the greenness of a product or service beyond the greenwashing they see advertised? I think there are far more sheeple that green-up because it is fashionable than informed people who are intelligently green.

[mlamonica]

Agreed - that is a serious challenge. But I still think that more and detailed disclosure is helpful even if only a minority of consumers dig into that info.

[gsmiller88]

I've been sick of the "green" tag for quite sometime now. It really got annoying when auto makers began showing their hybrid cars painted an ugly mint-green hue in their advertising.

[William Crow]

The whole "green" thing and "carbon footprint" concept is about people learning to shut their mouths and staying in their designated place in line. Many people, though they don't realize it, are very happy with this.

[fuzbears]

The problem with tags is they need certification bodies, and those most qualified, are too idealistic to actually be able to be practical in implementation. What you would need is something like consumer reports for "cleaner" products, combined with levels. The problem is that not all products in our life can be 100% clean, but we can choose by the company that is better, to create competition to be best. Few ask for the organic cancer drug, but you should be able to get your tires from the company that is rated as the least polluting.