Businesses Doing the Right Thing

On this 40th anniversary year of EarthDay, ethiquette was solicited for a couple of media interviews (even a request from Australia!). The focus of the interviews this year was greenwashing. 

The portal ethiquette.ca was launched to help consumers find products and services that are genuinely socially and environmentally responsible. Consumer interest has increased in recent years, and so too have the green products and green claims on products on the market. Recent years have show an extraordinary growth in green tags, or companies marketing products with some sort of claim to environmental responsibility.
 
First movers on green products were small businesses and they did so out of passion by the owner, a number of them grew to be medium-sized businesses.  Citizens as consumers and socially responsible investors have demonstrated their interest in green products. Big companies saw the market growth rates and wanted a part, so many have begun introducing slightly more green products, or packaging or other green claims. Labels or certifications have become one way for consumers to identify green products, and so certifications for all sorts of types of products have been developed, and a number have also been invented by businesses.

Greenwashing has grown significantly in recent years. Its effect on public confidence is serious. If greenwashing is not countered, the positive incentives behind social and environmental innovation in the marketplace may soon be eroded. At ethiquette, credibility is our most precious resource. To make this clear, we have laid out on the site as much information as possible so that site users can learn how we make decisions, what qualifies us to decide, checks and balances employed as well as policies we use in our day to day operations at ethiquette Inc.  Please see: http://www.ethiquette.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3044&Itemid=45&lang=en

It is encouraging to see that folks around the world are motivated to use their purchasing power to make a difference. Corporate response is both troubling and interesting. Interesting in that there is a recognition of the importance of this issue, and troubling in that the response is not yet adequate. Ethiquette and a number of other businesses and organizations around the world are helping to right this slightly off course direction that many business have taken. I believe that citizens can and will make a  difference, and all companies are made up of citizens too. The infrastructure of large companies is hard and slow to change; issues are much more complex than they may first seem (this is a whole other topic that I could address at some other time), but change will come if we keep at it.

For many of our loyal followers, EarthDay is everyday also and we salute and recognize that commitment.  Change is an incremental thing and change is happening because like us, for many of you EarthDay is everyday.

Keep making EarthDay everyday!