By Mindy Pennybacker

FROM JAGUAR ESTABLISHING a conservation trust or the habitat of its namesake jungle animals to Google granting $5000 rebates to employees who purchase hybrid cars, corporations are devising ingenious public relations ploys by adopting green initiatives. With 70 percent of American consumers telling a National Marketing Institute survey that they’ll gladly pay a premium for eco sensitive products, many businesses are now concocting “green hat strategies” to position themselves as being eco friendly. But the evolving world of eco economics isn’t as simple as black/hat green/hat. Along the spectrum from good guys to bad, grey—or greygreen—is still the prevalent shade.

IT’S A NEW LANDSCAPE
All over the economic landscape, companies are clamoring to prove they’re greener than the next guy. Wal-Mart is sourcing organic in food and cotton; McDonald’s, antibioticfree chickens; Home Depot, sustainably-harvested wood. Office Depot; recycled paper. Firms from Bank of America to BSkyB are cutting back on pollution, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. GreenOrder, a firm that specializes in strategizing green “makeovers,” is consulting to the likes of General Motors, GE and Pfizer with great success.

WHO DO WE BELIEVE?
Confronting a jungle of newly hatched green claims, earnest shoppers are often puzzled or misled. Eco claims—“natural,” “eco-friendly,” “non-toxic” and “free-range”—can be both confusing and deceptive. “Backed by no set standards, many of these self-proclaimed ‘virtues’ are simply meaningless,” says Urvashi Rangan of the Consumers Union website www.eco-labels.org.

Critics point to British Petroleum’s recent ecological problems in Alaska. While touting its BP tagline, “Beyond Petroleum,” media coverage suggests that BP was negligent with maintenance, resulting in the much publicized pipeline mishap that temporarily sent oil prices soaring. No wonder many wary shoppers are asking whether green advertising claims are valid.

MISLEADING GESTURES
Consumer advocates maintain that green “gestures” should not be used to mislead consumers. Starbucks, for example, gets kudos from Worldwatch for selling organic, fair-trade and shadegrown coffees, but in What Matters Most, his book on socially responsible business trends, Jeffery Hollender points out that these beverages represent less than three percent of the company’s total product line.

And while Starbucks new hot cups use post-consumer recycled (PCR) and unbleached paper, their bottled water suggests another greygreen dilemma. For each bottle of Ethos Water sold, the company donates five cents towards cleaner drinking water in less developed countries. Purists ask whether that contribution actually compensates for the fossil fuel expended trucking heavy cases of water to their stores. And what about the non-renewable plastic bottles that are principally tossed and not recycled? These are what are known as grey green issues.

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