From Wikipedia:
Greenwash (a portmanteau of green and whitewash) is a term used to describe the practice of companies disingenuously spinning their products and policies as environmentally friendly, such as by presenting cost cuts as reductions in use of resources. It is a deceptive use of green PR or green marketing. The term green sheen has similarly been used to describe organizations that attempt to show that they are adopting practices beneficial to the environment.
The story:
I stayed at a Marriott hotel for a few days this weekend. It's much like Marriott everywhere—convenient location, upscale interior, courteous staff, nice rooms—and, like many Marriott locations, it provides a central "store" near the front desk. At the store, guests can pick up food items and have them charged to their room—better, in some ways, than "mini-bars" in each room. The selection is wider, the items fresher and the prices (a bit) lower.
Checking in after a long plane flight, I grabbed a bottle of soda from the store—OK, and a candy bar, too— I finished at the reception desk and went up to my room.
Next morning: the candy is gone and the drink bottle is empty. At home, I would have placed the paper from the candy and the plastic bottle into the recycling bins—I have mixed-stream recycling in my home town. Here, I still want to be responsible—even in a small way—so as I head out for the day, I take the plastic bottle with me to find a recycling bin.
No recycling bin in my room; none in the hall; none in evidence in the lobby. So I ask—and am told, "We don't do recycling, but we'll throw it in the trash for you."
OK, so I do recycling the other 364 days of the year when I'm at home—what's a few percent of not recycling among friends. Turning up my smile and trying to sound "mock scolding", I say, "No recycling? How dare you?" to the staff member behind the desk.
And then, he makes the fatal mistake: not understanding my mock seriousness, he answers, "Well, you know that Marriott is a green company right?"
The next few moments are a study in cognitive dissonance: my smile stays on my face, but my urge is to say, "WTF? Marriott claims to be green and you.don't.recycle.plastic.bottles?"
Which then, over the course of the next few hours, leads to thoughts about whether this is an example of greenwashing, and how can a company claim to be green when it doesn't provide recycling of product containers, and whether to stay somewhere else next time, and the like.
Oh, and: You moron—you're not being logical. Marriott may be green for a host of other reasons, all of which pale by comparison to not recycling a few plastic bottles for guests.
Back home, a quick Google search turns up the fact that Marriott has won awards for its "green culture":
October, 2009: Travel + Leisure magazine honored Marriott with the Global Vision award... "Green/Eco Hotel," and recognized the company for its five-point strategy plan to off-set its environmental footprint.
and is highly ranked about its environmental stance:
September, 2009 – Marriott was ranked #42 out of 100 on Newsweek's first-ever list of "The Greenest Big Companies in America."
So, how to know for sure? Green culture or greenwash? I can't tell.
However there is no small irony in the fact that a Google search turns up, as the top link:
Green Business Practices--Marriott's Environmentally Friendly...
...which leads to a page which is no longer there.
[Update: the link actually does work, it just appears to be a Firefox issue. So, the death of irony may have been accurately predicted.]
Your thoughts?