Greenwashing - a Need for Boundaries?

Hardly a new idea, greenwashing refers to the exaggeration or misrepresentation of corporate environmental efforts, including erroneously touting the environmental 'friendliness' of products, sustainable manufacturing, and other misleading practices that aren't coming to mind.... A recent Nielsen study, mentioned by Adage, reveals the limited success corporations can expect from greenwashing efforts, due to all those handy muckrakers, concerned joes and environmental watchdogs out in the blogosphere who have a voice thanks to places like greenwashingindex.com. With so many eyes keeping watch, the truth will out! Eventually, all those green bloggers, will render all corporate deeds (and misdeeds) transparent to the consuming public.

Perhaps they're betting they'll ride out discovery with their brand equity intact, or never be discovered at all. Or, more likely, they simply don't feel they're doing anything wrong. For many, I think it's a matter of "positioning"- a loaded word for marketers who navigate the murky waters somewhere between a real desire and need to sell, and the need to be credible. Perhaps, marketers, advertisers and corporations just need more boundaries. With certain products, one might imagine a need for FDA or government intervention. The now widely known Energy Star labels come to mind, but those really only apply to appliances. Then again, how the hell do you place parameters around a word like "green" or "environmentally-friendly"? Similar to the food labeling controversies and loose definitions for phrases like "organic" were exposed by Michael Pollen in the The Omnivore's Dilemma. Perhaps we need more Energy Star-like labels? Icons that represent credible greenness? No answers here, just questions.