Not even the most famous Muppet can escape consumer criticism.
In a television advertisement, Kermit the Frog is seen pedaling on a bicycle and climbing over a cliff before he spots a Ford Escape Hybrid in a lush forest. “I guess it is easy being green,” Kermit says.
University professors and a Texas-based marketing firm teamed up this month to create the Greenwashing Index (www.greenwashingindex.com), a Web site that allows users to evaluate environmental claims made in print and television advertisements. In the Ford Escape Hybrid commercial, for example, users question the vehicle’s fuel efficiency. The creation of the Web site is also timely because the Federal Trade Commission will host public workshops about environmental advertising this month.
Kim Sheehan and Deborah Morrison, professors in the University’s journalism school, hope to educate consumers about greenwashing.
“Greenwashing is the phenomenon where advertisers and brands or services claim some environmental positive aspect of their brand,” Morrison said. “By greenwashing, we mean those who exaggerate the claims or just use it for their own good and don’t have much to show for it.”
Companies are guilty of greenwashing because advertisers can’t articulate an environmental claim, use incorrect language or are na’ve, Morrison said.
“The site gives advertisers a good heads up, and we can say: ‘Look, we’re calling on you on this. If you say gentle to the earth, what does that mean?’ They will change,” Morrison said.
Sheehan said she started to address the issue in her 2003 book “Controversies in Contemporary Advertising” when advertisers claimed to recycle.
“Words like recycle can be very loaded, and people have emotional attachments to them,” Sheehan said.
She said greenwashing originally started when advertisers made false or exaggerated claims – related to the environment or not. About 10 years ago, for example, Philip Morris advertised itself as a “great corporate citizen” and said it donated to various causes, Sheehan said.
The term has since been applied to environmental issues.
“We’ve been witnessing a tidal wave of green advertising over the past year,” said EnviroMedia President Kevin Tuerff in a press release. EnviroMedia is heading the Web site.
Anyone can upload a print or television advertisements on the Web site, and users can discuss and rate the ads on a scale from one to five. The maximum rating of five means the ad is full of misleading claims. Posters have uploaded about 50 ads, and local, national and international users are posting comments on the site.
“We believe it offers one more way consumers can learn what effective advertising is,” Morrison said.
Users found that not all advertisements are filled with greenwashing. One ad from a German wind energy company that was recently uploaded scored a 1.35.
“I think we can craft messages using language that can be persuasive and can be honest at the same time,” Sheehan said.
Although the professors haven’t assigned homework related to the Web site, they have told professors at other colleges about the site. It has also been featured in US News & World Report, The New York Times and Brandweek.
The University professors said they hope companies examine their messages more closely.
“To me, the best way to tackle this is if we have smart self-regulation,” Morrison said. “That’s being very optimistic.”
The FTC, the government agency aimed at protecting consumers, is meeting this month about environmental claims made in advertisements.
“I do think it’s good for the government to develop definitions of these green words and promote the definition so we as consumers can be smarter when advertisers use these words,” Sheehan said.
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