Green Washing

Greenwashing
Melissa Whellams. Chris MacDonald. “Greenwashing” Business Ethics. 30 September 2011.

‘Greenwashing’,according to the text, is a term that describes misleading advertisements about the environment, or companies that represent themselves wrongfully as ‘green’.. The authors of the article “Greenwashing”, Mellisa Whellams and Chris Macdonald,argue that this is a fad that is deceitful and potentially harmful to our views on saving the environment. An example from the text is a 2004 Ford advertisement launching its new Hybrid SUV and their factory remodeling supposedly showing its commitment to the environment. The advertisement failed to mention that they only sold 20,000 hybrids per year, while selling about 80,000 F-series trucks a month. Mellisa and Chris then list off three main issues that come from thisfad. First,   it’s misleading and dishonest. Second they fear it will cause consumer complacency, if one company gets away with it, they all will .In turn this will cause what they see as an illusion of environmental sustainability, where consumers 0will continue to buy products that they feel are helping when actually it is doing more harm than good. And last, they fear that consumers may become skeptical of all things green, so even companies that actually mean good would not receive the recognition that they may deserve.
I believe that Melissa Whellams and Chris MacDonald did a proficient job on   their argument against ‘greenwashing’. They include numerous credible sources   cited within their article, including a list of those at the bottom of the page so that the reader may seem them. This validates the credibility of the information and helps support the case even more. There are also many very compelling points on the downsides of the fad, such as becoming almost immune to it. I believe that it is very true that if we become complacent with these ways, we could form an illusion that we have reached environmental sustainability. This would... [continues]

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