Greenwashing is an attempt by an entity with bad environmental practices—usually a corporation or politician— to fool people that they are environmentally friendly. The term was coined in 1986 when Jay Westerveld realized that hotels asking guests not to change towels to save water was an attempt to distract from bigger environmental issues.

Greenwashing can be done in many ways. Some will have one division of their corporation that really is environmentally friendly, to try to pretend that their 95% poisonous environmental record is the same as the good 5%. Other corporations will use such words as sustainable, environmental, eco-friendly, green, or organic in an attempt to completely disguise their poisonous products.

On this episode, we will expose some of those practices and help you to identify greenwashing. This is an episode about corporate irresponsibility and corporate masquerades. We’ll talk about how they hide pollution—and how to avoid being deceived.

Our guests this week are plastics campaigner Lindsey Jurca from Greenpeace and Deanna Noël, campaigns director for Public Citizen’s Climate Program. Both organizations have been working on greenwashing issues for a long time.

Deanna Noël advocates for financial institutions and regulators to act on climate change and for automakers to transition to zero emission vehicles. Prior to joining Public Citizen, Deanna worked on campaigns to protect public lands and safeguard federal environmental laws including the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act.

Lindsey Jurca is a Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace, where she advances efforts to prevent plastic and petrochemical pollution, using research, policy, and advocacy to expose the true costs of plastics and petrochemicals. Prior to joining Greenpeace, Lindsey led global petrochemical and plastics campaigns at the Center for International Environmental Law.

We begin the show with news segments. This week: Big Seafood’s labor and sustainability problems, the big Greenpeace trial, and the greenwashing of the building industry.

Our music for you this week is “Greenwashing” by New Zealand singer, songwriter, educator, Peter Weatherall.

Tune in on radio or internet to get more details.

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