I threatened to do it, and I always carry through with my threats (being a good parent, ecologist and all round pain in the backside) so, with great fanfare I would like to induct John Reed into the EcoSpam Hall Of Fame¹

John Reed is Creative Director of Elevator Communications, a mainstream and not at all different (despite the claims) PR company. He started sending me spam a few weeks ago, and didn’t stop, regardless of my appeals. As a former IT Security bod, I know it’s risky responding to spam, but this guy has his picture on the website, and doesn’t hide any communication details — not your ordinary spam merchant, or so you would think.

He sends out spam pertaining to be ecologically sound. Here is a sample:

INTERVIEW: Lewis Buchner, CEO of EcoTimber, Inc. (San Rafael, California) is available to talk or meet with you.
NEWS: a new, patented, woven bamboo flooring product has just been introduced by EcoTimber. This new flooring product is significantly harder and more stable than most tropical hardwoods and can be used in residential and commercial applications.

California’s Solar Pioneer and his “Green Business”, Berkeley-style Story Notes:
Interview: Gary Gerber, Founder and President of Sun Light and Power is available to talk with you. As 2008 President of CALSEIA – the California Solar Energy Association – he can talk about the growth of the solar energy industry over the past 32 years, pending legislation, potential roadblocks to the growth of solar and the future of this industry in an age of $137 a barrel oil.

Publicly traded Carbon Sciences, Inc (Santa Barbara, CA) the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform harmful carbon
NEWS AND STORY IDEA, SUMMARY:
Publicly traded Carbon Sciences, Inc (Santa Barbara, CA) the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) into high value, earth-friendly products, Monday announced that it has signed a joint research agreement with Abo University, Finland. This new technology converts CO2, a greenhouse gas, into commercially useful products and providing a technological alternative to the unknown consequences of sequestering (burying) CO2 under the land or oceans. Due to the unique geology of Finland, underground sequestration of CO2 is not an economically viable option.

And so on. The usual eco-bollocks of the highest order. When you look into the kinds of people this guy represents, then you realise that his motivation is rather suspect, to say the least:

University of Tennessee Mouse Brain Library : The MBL consists of high-resolution images and databases of brains from many genetically characterized strains of mice.

KrispyKreme! : Junk food purveyors to the working business breakfast.

Shea homes : Largest private house builder in the USA. Lots of big luxurious pads.

TAG Oil : Canadian-based petroleum company with more than 1,000,000 acres of exploration land in New Zealand.

Along with many other companies you really wouldn’t want to rub shoulders with. I’m not alone in feeling the pain of EcoSpam. Here is the slightly twee, but harmless Green Living Tips on the same subject:

Today I received my first piece of “green” spam. The subject line was “Don’t invest in gold, invest in green”. It was touting yet another miracle, totally natural and sustainably produced exotic fruit drink that would do all sorts of things for me; probably including some of the incredible and pretty much impossible physical, umm.. enhancements, that other types of spam offer :).

Green spam will only increase; so be really careful when receiving unsolicited email about earth friendly products that you research whatever is being hawked thoroughly before reaching for your credit card.

(Actually, the last thing I would do when receiving spam would be to reach for my credit card — the “Delete” key will do just fine.)

A slightly more caustic response (and hooray! for that) from Intemperate Remarks:

G Ananthapadmanabhan, Executive Director of Greenpeace India is sending me spam every few days. The mails come from fake Gmail accounts like greenpeacetree@gmail.com, or from their domain IDs like tree@in.greenpeace.org or sapling@in.greenpeace.org

This a*shole wants me to plant a tree. To save the world. Before it’s too late. I understand the gravity of the situation, with evils like Global Warming, Global Prosperity, Capitalism and all running riot. Considering that such high stakes like the survival of green beetles in sub-Saharan Africa are involved, it is understandable if this jerk has given up basic decency like not spamming unknown people’s private email IDs, and joined the league of snake-oil salesmen offering oriental remedies for towering erections.

You see, this EcoSpam is just another branch in the ever-expanding world of electronic marketing. Just because it says it’s green – as you well know if you read The Unsuitablog regularly – doesn’t mean it is green. Any company wishing to sell a product for a net profit, regardless of its pedigree, is contributing to a net degradation of the global ecosystem: end of story. It may take money away from more damaging products, but it still perpetuates the market economy and takes us ever further away from the things that really matter — like having a real life.

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1. Possibly to be repeated

Here’s one for everyone who works for a company: that’ll be just about everyone who’s reading this, I guess (and, while possibly stating the obvious, the last year since leaving the corporate machine has been the best year of my life).

No doubt you will have heard about your company driving forwards with Corporate Social Responsibility, Environmental Policies, Green Certification and any other mixture of one or more “green” word along with a “serious” word to suggest how serious the company is. I want you to take a long, hard look at the policies that your company has produced, and see if you notice anything odd about them. Here’s my guess:

Not one of the policies will, in any way, try to undercut that company’s bottom line.

Ok, it seems pretty obvious that companies exist to make money — more than that, they exist to make a profit, and keep growing so that the shareholders or owners can get richer. In short, company “environmental” policies are not worth the paper they are written on, or the bytes they occupy, because the company is a business: it exists to consume resources at an ever increasing rate; whether those resources are coal, oil, fish, metal, land, trees, water, people…whatever the company uses to ensure its continued growth.

Here are a few examples:

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ExxonMobil

It is our policy to conduct our business in a manner that is compatible with the balanced environmental and economic needs of the communities in which we operate. We are committed to continuous efforts to improve environmental performance throughout our operations worldwide.

(from http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/community_ccr_envpolicy.aspx)

JP Morgan

This is a big policy, but you can get an idea from this…

Private equity investments

Our private equity divisions conduct an environmental review as part of their investment decision process for direct investments in companies in environmentally sensitive industries. The review process analyses our prospective portfolio companies’ compliance with applicable environmental laws, regulations and international norms. The environmental review process is an integral part of our private equity area’s thorough due diligence review of companies and their management.

Once an investment is made, through their membership on a portfolio company’s board of directors, our private equity divisions monitor their portfolio company’s operations with respect to environmental compliance issues.

(from http://www.jpmorgan.com/pages/jpmc/community/env/policy/risk)

EDF Energy

We think continual environmental improvement is as important as any other business objective. We’ve implemented ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems in many of our power plants to help achieve this.

As we use coal and gas to produce electricity in this country, any changes we make will make a big difference to the UK’s carbon footprint. We know that millions depend on us to provide reliable, affordable energy. For this we need a diverse range of energy sources, including renewables and nuclear power. We also provide ways for our customers to play their part too. Using energy more efficiently is the surest way to reduce costs to our customers and to the planet.

(from http://www.edfenergy.com/about-us/energy-generation/environmental-policy/index.shtml)

And here’s a cracker, from Weyerhaeuser:

It is Weyerhaeuser’s core policy to be responsible stewards of the environment wherever we do business. We will practice sustainable forestry, set and meet goals to reduce pollution, conserve natural resources and energy, and continually improve our environmental performance.

All employees and leaders worldwide are accountable for managing and operating our businesses to:

– Comply with all applicable environmental laws.
– Follow company environmental standards.
– Meet other external requirements to which the company commits.

Business activities will be conducted to:

– Employ environmental management systems to achieve company expectations.
– Manage the environmental impacts of our business activities and products, including innovative and advanced technology solutions.
– Promote environmental laws, policies and regulations that are based on sound science and that incorporate incentive-based approaches to improve environmental performance.
– Adopt company standards to protect the environment.
– Manage forestlands for the sustainable production of wood while protecting water quality; fish and wildlife habitat; soil productivity; and cultural, historical and aesthetic values.
– Audit compliance with environmental laws, policies, regulations and company requirements.
– Resolve noncompliance conditions promptly, including curtailing operations when necessary to protect human health and the environment.
– Track and publicly report on our environmental performance.

(from http://www.weyerhaeuser.com/Sustainability/EnvironmentalPolicy)

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What do you think? On the surface, they suggest the companies are committed to being good global stewards, but read again and it is clear that this is just business as usual:

– A company that commits to abide by environmental regulations is just saying that it doesn’t fancy breaking the law — even though it is the companies themselves that are responsible for shaping most of the laws through their lobbying work.

– A company that says they are “working towards” something can say this forever, and still look good.

– A company that talks about “sustainability” is actually referring to balancing economic and environmental requirements in their own terms. The only true definition of sustainability (leaving things in no worse a state than they were when you started) is not enshrined in any law or any company policy.

– A company that advises others on their environmental impact does not have to take responsibility for outcome of their advice: it is a way of passing the buck.

– A company that says that economic and environmental needs can be balanced is on suicide watch.

Feel free to add your own, and let me know what kinds of Policy Greenwashing your company is taking part in by contacting news@unsuitablog.com — so long as you ask then I won’t say where I got the information from.

Questioning and exposing the greenwashing activities of corporations, in particular, is something that the seasoned cynic makes light of; but sometimes our job is made more difficult, not so much by the quality of the greenwashing being used, but by the sheer weight of apparent “public” opinion supporting the views of the corporations.

For many years, corporations employed IT-savvy PR companies specifically to post items on newsgroups, chatrooms and bulletin boards, putting a positive spin on whatever company line was being trotted out. Much of this was simple global warming sceptic fare, the kind you still see repeated (usually using stock phrases, uncannily similar IP address ranges and men full of straw) in the comment lists of blogs and newspaper web sites.

But corporations don’t stop at that — they have plenty of money, markets to crack and worlds (well, one world) to change. This is why the Astroturf was born. Astroturf is the green plastic stuff that is made of nylon but looks a bit like grass; but it’s still synthetic, still articificial, and no sane person would think of laying it in their front garden if they wanted a lush, natural lawn. From a distance, though, astroturf can look pretty convincing, and an Astroturf can look just like a genuine grassroots organization if you don’t look that carefully.

Jim Hoggan, founder of DeSmogBlog wrote a good case study of the Astroturf, Friends of Science, in which he explains how they function:

We have an organization that presents itself as grassroots while concealing its corporate connections. We have an overlapping group of experts who have proved themselves willing to take money from one of the most compromised industries in the world (tobacco), as well as from big oil. We have “scientists” who publish almost nothing in the peer-reviewed press, but who contribute frequently to the nation’s opinion pages and who conduct barnstorming tours of the country, urging everyone from newspaper editors to groups of retirees to fight against good climate change policy.

In a previous Unsuitablog article, I introduced a game called “Follow the Links”, explaining how, with just one link to follow, it is possible to open up a whole web of misrepresentation, self-interest and outright denial from just a single individual or group. PRWatch have an ongoing roll of such groups and webs — I recommend you keep an eye on their pages.

How To Spot An Astroturf

You can easily spot Astroturfs by just checking for two or more of the following:

1. Are they making claims that fly in the face of orthodoxy, and would corporations benefit financially from these claims being true?

2. Does the web site look extremely professional, slick and “corporate”, yet does not display name any specific corporations as sponsors or backers?

3. Does the web site / information pack use “false authority”, with corporate-type logos, formal high-level job titles (President, Vice-President), quotes from well-known authority figures and other ways of pumping up its immediate credibility?

4. Is the name composed of a feel-good and/or geographical part, and an “institutional” part like “Foundation”, “Institute”, “Trust” or “Centre / Center”, e.g. Coalition for Clean Coal, American Choice Foundation, Clear Air Trust?

5. Do the people in the Advisory or VP roles work for other Astroturfs or groups with similar roles, or have they been exposed recently as being funded by corporations?

6. When you contact the group, do you have difficulty speaking directly to the authors of articles / opinion pieces in a technical manner; do they have to get someone to make a statement, or arrange a specific interview slot?

7. Has the group’s entry on Wikipedia been edited by a corporation — you can find out by using the Wiki Scanner?

Other information that you may be able to find out, but not without some effort:

8. Is the group run by a skeleton staff, despite appearing to be a large organization?

9. Does the web site / mail server use the same IP address range, or the telephone system use the same number range as that of a known corporation?

10. Is the group completely absent of genuine volunteers (as opposed to work experience positions)?

Once you have found an Astroturf, or a group you strongly suspect to be an Astroturf then make your findings public: make or edit an entry on Wikipedia and SourceWatch; e-mail news blogs and newspapers; add relevant comments to any blogs or articles that mention the Astroturf…make a nuisance of yourself you may be able to get them shut down!

 

Not everything on The Unsuitablog is greenwashing, sometimes it is about organisations that are just being foolish or aren’t informed enough to realise they are being hypocritical; sometimes it is about stuff that is just plain bad, and is featured because it is bad enough that everyone should know about. But the vast majority of stuff here is Greenwash. If you are a regular reader (for which I am very grateful) then you will already know how to spot greenwash. But just spotting it won’t stop it happening; we need to know more about the various tools companies, authorities, NGOs and other areas of life use to pull the leaves over our eyes.

The first one in this small series is Advertising.

The first time most people, including me, come across greenwashing is in the form of an advertisement. Adverts are, by their nature, commercial tools: they exist to encourage people to spend money. Straight away we can see a problem here, because the act of spending money — in the vast majority of cases — is unsustainable, regardless of the product being purchased. If you buy something new (when was the last time you saw an advert for something pre-owned?) then you are almost certain to be using non-renewable materials; and also non-renewable energy that was used to produce, transport, market and retail the item.

There are many different types of advertisement, ranging from press adverts in your local, small-circulation freesheet, national newspaper and magazine adverts, radio and television adverts (again these could be local or national), cinema adverts, billboards and the various forms of moving and placed adverts in a huge number of different items — bus tickets, schoolbooks, taxicabs etc.

In general, the glossier, bigger and larger circulation the advertisement, the more money that has been spent on it — and, therefore, the more money the advertiser is hoping to recoup from the sale of the item. For instance, a full-page adverts in National Geographic, Time or the Washington Post will cost tens of thousands of Dollars / Euros / Pounds etc. A 30 second spot in the middle of a major sporting event can cost millions.

If you see “green” claims in these, high-cost adverts, then you can be sure that you are looking at a piece of clever, slick greenwash. These people pay advertising agencies a hell of a lot of money to ensure their messages get across — the messages that the advertiser wants the public to see, and nothing else. Compare this to a local radio or newspaper advert, that might make environmental claims: if greenwashing, they are far more likely to be clumsy and opaque; but greenwashing is rare in such adverts. The high-cost advertisement is the home of much of the very worst greenwashing.

The public, sadly, have very short memories: this is not the fault of the public; it is the fault of the advertisers who continually pump a stream of digital sewage into our brains — who can blame people for forgetting the slip-ups of the past. And here is another key point: the greenwasher with money can afford to take a chance that they will be exposed, because if they do manage to pull off the perfect greenwash, they will have pulled it off in front of millions of potential consumers, many of whom are looking for products that are that bit greener. If they do get found out; well, there will be another advert, another slogan, another logo along in a short while ready to wipe out the memory of the greenwash.

The key message here, then, is be vigilant, be smart, and never forget.

Oh, and forget the “greensumption”: it’s just a con.

I have a pretty good radar for greenwash, which is how it’s so easy to find subjects for The Unsuitablog; but the adverts, the policies, the promotions and the speeches full of bright green spit keep on coming. Someone is lapping this all up and it’s the consuming public: if not then why would companies and organisations keep on doing it?

My aim with The Unsuitablog is twofold, and you can all help me with it:

1) To make everyone adept at spotting greenwash as and when it is trotted out.

2) To make greenwashing as socially unacceptable as consuming hard drugs in front of your grandmother.

Without the first aim, the second aim cannot come true, which means that greenwashing will thrive, and those responsible will carry on doing their Earth killing behind closed doors.

If you are a regular reader of The Unsuitablog then you will already be quite adept at seeing how it is done, but here are some tips for everyone who wants a little help:

• Be suspicious of all environmental claims. Don’t trust any claims unless you have verified them yourself.
• If a company, in particular, takes out a large advertisement in a newspaper, or runs a TV advertisement saying how great their green credentials are — then they are hiding something, guaranteed. If someone is trying sell their “green” credentials then ask yourself, “why?”
• If a company has a bad history it is highly unlikely to have changed overnight. Use web sites like SourceWatch and Corporate Watch, as well as this site, to find out the truth behind the mask.
• Look out for poor use of scientific facts, especially when listening to politicians: “Reducing carbon emissions will protect the ozone layer”, “this technology is sustainable”, “emissions can be offset”, “the greenhouse effect is not certain” etc. All examples of rubbish that has no basis in fact, even the last one (think about it).
• Look out for buzzwords that put a gloss on reality: “carbon intensity”, “sustainable development”, “carbon offsets”, “clean technology” etc. Another clear sign that something is being covered up.
• Use your common sense and your instincts. If it doesn’t feel right then it probably isn’t.

And can I just ask a little favour? Please tell everyone you know about The Unsuitablog, and link here if you have a web site: the more people get to see the truth, the fewer lies will be told.

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Now you have found the greenwash, it’s time to start really investigating it and getting the things you need to expose the greenwasher. If you fancy it, then read How To Investigate Greenwash…

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It’s always interesting to see what happens when the target of an Unsuitablog article reads that article. I know they do, and I have had a few interesting responses from companies in particular, as well as a couple from political offices. I made the decision from the outset that nothing would be exempt from this site if there was a good reason for including it: there are lots of reasons ranging from simply exposing a hypocritical company to making an organisation question their motives.

On the occasion of publishing this item I was prepared for a backlash. Some of the most stubborn personalities exist within environmental groups, and unlike businesses who take criticism as part of the job (no CEO genuinely believes they are doing business for the good of the planet), NGOs and the like really think the way they operate is for the best: or rather, the people who run the NGOs think they know what is best. I know several committed current and former NGO members who really are doing the right thing, but from all my dealings over the last umpteen years with these groups (I have taken part in more actions than I can remember), it is clear they are in the minority.

Stubbornness can be directed in a positive way, as can anger: in fact, anger and stubbornness are vital elements in ridding the world of a system that constantly seeks to brainwash and coerce individuals into thinking that the way of life it promotes is the only life you can have. When anger becomes disproportionate, and manifests itself in petty threats, though, then you realise that the perpetrator is feeling both threatened and out of control. Here are two examples:

http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/03/07/plane-stupid-plane-pointless/#comment-304

http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/03/07/plane-stupid-plane-pointless/#comment-309

I’m big enough to look after myself, but am not going to waste time taking up the offers: I have far more important things to do than try and convince an angry person that they are targeting their passion in the wrong direction; when they have calmed down then that will be the right time. But better than that, I believe that the person in question is genuine, and just needs to understand that their symbolic actions are fruitless – the system will not change, people have to reject the system entirely and work towards something better. How that happens is manifold, but it must happen.

So, you are really pissed off with a company and want to tell them what you think of them, what they should do and what you are going to do if they don’t. You go to their web site, click on the “Contact Us” link and find a form that they have so kindly provided – you don’t even have to open your mail client.

WAIT! Do not fill in that form!

The message will end up with all of the other complaints and comments, in some dump-bin ready for an administrator or more likely a computer to send a standard reply. The message you sent will never be seen by anyone with any influence. Consequently, the chances of anything happening as a result of your message are just about zero. This is intentional; companies genuinely don’t want the public to know individuals’ e-mail addresses, because those individuals are human beings.

I’m not saying that e-mails in themselves make any significant difference: after all, a business exists to make money and, in most cases, environmental protection, socal welfare and human rights are off their radar. But – and it’s a big but – if enough messages are sent to a number of individuals then maybe, just maybe, those individual, rather than the monolithic corporate machine, will get the right idea. The key is getting your message to the right individuals.

Obviously there is no point filling in the form. Here’s what you do:

1) Find out the name of the person you want to receive the message. Choose the Chief Executive / President, head of the relevant section or department, and a few other random people. You can find these names on the company’s web site.

2) Go to the web site http://www.emailnamefinder.com/ and search for the company. If you find that company then use suggested format.

3) If you can’t find the company on EMail Name Finder, then do a Google search for <company web name> contact email, (e.g. “barclays.co.uk” contact email) and look for a human name, followed by “@<company web name>. It doesn’t matter who is on the e-mail, that will probably be the standard format. Below is the Barclays example – it has found a person called Kathy Brown, so the standard format is <firstname.lastname>@barclays.co.uk. It has also found the barclays.com format too!

4) Compose your e-mail using the format you have found. Make sure the e-mail addresses are in the To: box, not the Bcc: box as you might think.

5) If you have found a format that is not on Email Name Finder then send your discovery to them at emailnamefinder@gmail.com

It’s always better to send messages to multiple people in the same company for two reasons:

1) Your e-mail has a far better chance of being read.

2) It is impossible for one recipient to pretend that they didn’t receive the e-mail. The more embarrassing and hard-hitting your message, the more chance that one or more of the recipients will feel uneasy, especially in the presence of the other recipients. Fear is what drives companies to change.

Plus, having a go at the CEO or President in the sight of his or her underlings is great fun!