Greenwashing

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Greenwashing is a form of advertising or marketing that deceptively uses social and environmental PR in order to persuade the public that a company's products, goals, or policies are environmentally friendly. Companies that intentionally adopt greenwashing strategies often do so to distance themselves from their environmental lapses or those of their suppliers. While the term itself was coined in a 1986 essay about the hotel industry's "save the towel" movement, the practice has been traced back to the 1950's with the "keep America beautiful" campaign which puts the burden of reducing and recycling litter on the consumer and shifts the focus away from corporate responsibility.

“Their glitzy advertisements can no longer conceal their climate criminal behaviour – polluting the planet, raking in record profits, and sanitising their own image to continue the climate-wrecking cycle.” — former Green Party MP Caroline Lucas

Notable examples

• BP-post-Gulf oil spill advertisements

• Volkswagen - emissions scandal