To Investigate the Prevalence of Greenwashing in Canadian Businesses Essay

Today, the development of greenwashing in Canada is one of the mainstream trends in the business development because green technologies and orientation of companies on the environment protection contributes to the growing popularity of brands among the public. In such a situation, many organizations attempt to develop their eco-labels to attract customers and to gain the public approval, while, in actuality, many of them are far from environmentalist ideology and they may have a negative impact on the environment, in spite of declared orientation on the environment protection.
In actuality, it is possible to distinguish different types of eco-labels, which practice greenwashing as a part of their marketing strategy. In this respect, it is possible to distinguish official, government sponsored eco-labels, such as Canadian Environmental Choice, Energy Star, and others. In fact, these eco-labels refer to the authority of the Canadian government and attempt to exploit their presumable environmental concerns to gain marketing benefits, to improve their public image and to attract more customers (Priesnitz, 2008). As a rule, these eco-labels are often reliable and reputable, although their practices do not always match their declared environmentalist policies. On the other hand, many of such organizations have consistently less negative environmental impact compared to other organizations that do not have such eco-label.
Another type of eco-labels are self-declared, unregulated labels, such as mobious loop. These organizations are different from the official eco-labels but they still attempt to exploit their image as organizations concerned with the environmental protection (Tokar, 1997). At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that self-declared, unregulated eco-labels are probably the least reputable and reliable because they do not have to pass through a system of the assessment being conducted by a state agency and meet such standards as CSA-ISO – 14021 (Lubbers, 2002). In such a way, they establish their own norms, which they meet and neither state agencies nor the public can control them in regard to the extent, to which their practices are beneficial for the environment.
Finally, there is one more type of eco-labels, which are labels from independent, non-government organizations, such as Rainforest Alliance Certified. As the matter of fact, these eco-labels are also quite reputable but, similarly to the official eco-labels, their practices are still not always beneficial for the environment. Nevertheless, their operations and practices are under the public control and are evaluated by public, non-government organizations. In this regard, non-government organizations perform the function of the public control over eco-labels.
At the same time, the use of eco-labels often contributes to the improvement of their marketing position because their ideology and presumable positive effect on the environment contributes to the improvement of their public image and attracts customers to their brands. In this regard, greenwashing has a high level of effectiveness and a considerable impact on the consumer behaviour because consumers are vulnerable to the impact of greenwashing as they are very concerned about their environment and its protection. As a result, they believe that eco-labels have a positive impact on the environment. In such a way, consumers’ behaviour changes for eco-labels attract them. Consumers believe that buying products or services from eco-brands they contribute to the improvement of the environmental situation. Hence, eco-labels can exploit their positive brand image and attract customers.
At the same time, eco-labels and their marketing do not always meet the CSA-ISO guidelines for eco-labels. To put it more precisely, it is only the official eco-labels that meet the CSA-ISO guidelines, whereas other eco-labels fell out of the established standards. On the other hand, the existing CSA-ISO guidelines are still imperfect and may be manipulated to obtain the official status of eco-label.
In this regard, it is worth mentioning “sins of greenwashing”. In fact, many organizations, who position themselves as eco-labels, exploit their brand image to gain a better competitive position compared to rivals, which do not have eco-label status (Tokar, 1997). In this regard, the analysis of eco-labels reveals the fact that many eco-labels are not really beneficial for the environment. In comparison to the Terra choice audit, the analysis reveals more eco-labels, which use greenwashing to attract customers and which have little beneficial effect on the environment.
Nevertheless, there are still organizations that are concerned with the environmental protection and conduct responsible environmentalist policies (Clegg, 2009). Their products will make consistent net improvements to sustainability in Canada and globally because they develop the new philosophy of business, which focus on the environmental protection above all, whereas profits become secondary. At the same time, today, it is beneficial for organizations to have reputable eco-labels because they help organizations to gain the public approval and to attract more customers.
Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is possible to conclude that the development of eco-labels is beneficial for the environment and society. However, eco-labels should meet the CSA-ISO guidelines and be under the public control. In such a way, the risk of greenwashing decreases, while the environmental responsibility of organizations increases.