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Greenwash - Companies falsely claiming green cred.

The typical image of the Mediterranean is a blue sea with white-walled houses clinging to the rocky landscape. Every spring, after the Easter processions when the Mistral stops blowing, house-proud citizens freshen up those walls with a bucket of whitewash.

The power of a simple mixture of lime, chalk and water to hide the ravages of a year's wear and tear is so compelling it has entered the language. When a politician puts the best face on a difficult policy, we accuse them of 'whitewashing' the truth.

The language lives and whitewash has now acquired a green tinge as companies appeal to environmentally careful consumers. Some of them claim green credentials where no green credentials exist. Culprits range from “green phones” through “eco-credit cards” to “clean, green nuclear power”. The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission has had to step in and regulate the offset of carbon dioxide emissions and provide guidelines and definitions for the term “climate neutral”.

Your challenge is to develop the necessary X-ray vision to see past the greenwash to the facts underneath. A mixture of specific examples and general principles are provided here to hone your green wash detectors.

Title Filter     Display # 
# Article Title Author Hits
1 There's no right and wrong to tackling climate change Neville Gillmore 79
2 Coral reefs crucial to origin of new marine species, finds study Neville Gillmore 170
3 Wall Street plays carbon trading Joe Ebono 588
4 Whack on the Greenwash Joe Ebono 700
5 Blogger calls for end to Greenwash Joe Ebono 779
 

Residents of a village near Hanover, Germany, can switch on the streetlights as they need them using a mobile phone application. The project is designed to minimise electricity use without compromising the safety and convenience of the good burghers of DoerenTrup. The scheme has been piloted on several streets over the last year and was trialled after residents complained when the lights were turned off to save money.

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