While undertaking a green initiative, like any other branding exercise, it is important to locate the Target Audience. Especially for a persuasive sort of communication that needs to drive the audience to action. It is essential to understand what clicks and what doesn't with them. With the concept of Green Wash floating side-by-side with Eco Branding, there is always a chance of coming across as an all-gas-no-fart proposition.
A lot of incidents during the 50s, 60s, 70s got environmental pollution some much needed attention. The crew of the Japanese ship Lucky Dragon 5 being exposed to nuclear fallout at the hydrogen testing at Bikini Atoll, Oil spill in California’s Santa Barbara channel, Mercury poisoning of the people of Minamata, Japan, the Bhopal gas tragedy are a few to name. Post the Second World War, documentation like Racheal Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968), The Limits to Growth (1972) a report from Rome amongst others started educating the masses about the harm our ambitious industrial plans are doing to the environment. Linking the disturbances of the ecology, population explosion directly to our day-to-day lives helped shatter the bubble people lived in who never associated their existence to the melting of the glacier. This also around when ozone destroyers claimed to be ozone protectors, petrochemical companies claimed to be pioneers of recycling practices by using waste from on polluting process as raw materials for another. This is Green wash where TransNational Companies pretended to be friends of the Environment and leaders of initiatives to eradicate hunger and poverty.
“As the contemporary environmental movement built momentum in the mid-to-late 1960s, undermining the public trust in many a corporation, newly greened corporate images flooded the airwaves, newspapers and magazines. This initial wave of greenwash was labeled by former Madison Avenue advertising executive Jerry Mander and others at the time as "ecopornography.”
Source :Brief History of Greenwash http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=243
Many have come forward revealing the lies passed off under the garb of eco friendly practices. Greenpeace for one has taken up the issue of Greenwashing quite seriously.
A few other examples of watchdogs of Greenwashing:
http://stopgreenwash.org/history
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/apr/08/best-greenwash-adverts
http://webecoist.com/2009/12/14/greenwashing-so-absurd-its-almost-funny/

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