Are the big companies green washing?

What many people forget is that Ecover is one of the 1st brands to gain UK wide recognition and to be widely available in both small and large retailers such as supermarkets. There are not many truly green companies with multi-million pound turnovers at this stage but many of the household brands including the supermarkets themselves are greening themselves in order to capture a slice of the eco friendly market. I read the other day that Marks & Spencers are adding wind turbines to some of there stores.

Going back to products, the majority of consumers dont seem to care whether its from a green company or a household brand with an eco friendly version. An example is people are buying Nestle Fairtrade coffee even though the Nestle brand is subject to boycotts around the world. Nestle is targeted with the boycotts because monitoring conducted by the International Baby Food Action Network finds it to be responsible for more violations of the World Health Assembly marketing requirements for baby foods than any other company (see http://www.babymilkaction.org/pages/boycott.html).

As household brands have marketing budgets to keep them there many people will switch to the green version of there favorite brand as opposed to buying Ecover or another green brand for a 1st time that may be untested to them. In this regard Ecover and other green brands will struggle without the advertising budget as other other non ethical household brands green themselves and begin to gain market share at the expense of those brands that started the greening of everyday products. As awareness grows of environmental issues and ethical companies people will research and switch to companies and brands that fit into their green lifestyle, until that time they face an uphill battle to maintain market share and may even be bought out by a household brand to gain immediate green credentials like the Lo real and Body shop deal 2 years ago and Cadburys buying the luxury organic brand Green & Blacks.
Switching to organic, this weeks debate in the media is about whether food that is imported should be labeled as organic or whether it should just be local UK food. I wrote an article about this a year called Fairtrade, Local or Organic saying that people will have to choose what is important to them. Fairtrade alleviates poverty, organic is pesticide, healthy food and local food saves on food miles. Are any UK grown or made products certified Fairtrade? If so we then have the possibility of organic, fairtrade and local food combined into one. Until that date we have to make decisions and choose what is important to us. I for one dont think that overseas organic food should be banned on the simple basis that impoverished organic farmers in Africa that have spent valuable time and money to gain the UK organic certification could be told that there market has disappeared overnight. If this was to happen its only fair that they are compensated by the Soil Association in terms of money and also helping them to access new markets. After all, many organic consumer support Trade not Aid and I for one would be hugely disappointed to see struggling third world farmers lose out again so that my food has traveled a shorter distance. Just because it hasnt been flown into the UK can the Soil Association guarantee that the organic food we buy from any retailer has not travelled from an organic farm in the South of England to a distribution depot in Wales them to a supermarket in Scotland. I feel the answer is no unless the Soil Association wants to let us know any different?

About the Author

Davinos Greeno works for the green companies and fairtrade shopping directory that lists 100s of Organic and Ethical Companies

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