Green, or Greenwash?

When Kermit the Frog sang "It's not that easy being green" for the hybrid Ford Escape, he wasn't kidding: the eco set blasted Ford, noting that it plans to produce three times as many gas-guzzling pickups as hybrid SUVs (Ford counters that it's greening all its vehicles). Enviros are on the watch against"greenwashing," the "unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue," as one group puts it. Lexus, an eco-darling for its hybrid SUV, drew ire when it flew a car to Paul McCartney from Japan. Fiji has been lambasted for flying water around the world (the company carbon-offsets). Now consumers are showing "green fatigue": in a Boston College survey, only 47 percent said they trusted corporate green claims.

© 2008