The Black Side of Green

The Black Side of Green

In the past few years there has been an explosion of green products and green initiatives in the marketplace. But this movement hasn't been a hypothetical, government backed, and bound to never leave the boardroom initiative. We have seen some serious culture shifts in the way the market thinks, in the way companies move and market themselves, and in the way products are presented. We can see this on our streets. The word "hybrid" is plastered on every second car model. The line "ethically roasted coffee" has shown up on every street corner. We hear the media constantly pushing us to reduce our ecological footprint, to take transit, to bike, to buy eco-friendly detergent. Even the City of Surrey is pushing a green agenda with their new green waste collection movement. While this movement is great, there are many startling facts about the motivation behind companies' willingness and motivation to go green. When the motivation isn't for the right reason, we start to see compromises in values and ethical issues arise; consumers end up being taken advantage of, and there isn't any change in the environment.

With all this green bombardment on the consumer, it is no secret that we are in the middle of a green craze. And why shouldn't we be? Marketing firms and the general media has told us that we can protect the environment and still enjoy the same standard of life. To push try and force something that requires sacrifice isn't popular. John Grant (2007), author of the Green Marketing Maifesto, goes so far as to say that "sacrifice is the wrong framework" (Grant, 2008, p. 27). He goes on to say that "perhaps instead we need to see the present in terms of stupidity, decadence, ugliness, waste…all on an obscene scale" (Grant, 2008, p. 27). Grant makes the bold assumption that most people want to feel like they are doing their part, but when it comes down to it, they don't really want to make any extraordinary sacrifices to do so. In the following pages I will draw out this conclusion from his work. With all of that being said, if we don't need to make any compromises to our way of living, and we are actually protecting the environment, then the green movement has accomplished what it set out to do. But the biggest question still remains about whether or not the products we buy are actually green and if the green movement is no more than another marketing ploy.

Do companies truly have the same intentions of producing green products that are convenient? Let's start with a startling fact. From 1999 to 2005 consumers in the UK increased their green and ethical spending from £9.3 billion to £29.3 billion, a 315 percent increase in 6 short years. (Grant, 2007, p. 35). Based off this, we see one thing, green sells. In some markets, green isn't just a run of the mill success story, products