Greenwashing, Greenwishing, and Other Deadly Sins…

By Alison Pepper, Executive Vice President, Government Relations, 4As – American Association of Advertising Agencies (LinkedIn)

You wouldn’t think an animated otter cheerfully strumming a guitar and generically encouraging a diverse array of carefully assembled U.K. residents to recycle would invoke controversy. On its face, it sounds pretty innocuous (or um, innocent, if you’re feeling cheeky). But it did invoke controversy, and if you’re paying attention to the details, it evidences a pretty significant evolution in where consumers are directing their ire when it comes to greenwashing, and how regulators are racing to keep-up.

There’s probably no globally accepted definition of greenwashing, but generally speaking, there is broad agreement that it happens when a company exaggerates either its general environmental practices as a company and/or exaggerates the environmental attributes of a specific product or service. The distinction actually matters – increasingly, consumers are focusing their greenwashing accusations on the company, not the specific product or service of the company. And regulators are not far behind.

Read more in Advertising Week