Greenwashing Recolored

Greenwashing is the process of conveying a false impression or providing misleading information about how a company’s products are more environmentally sound.

Environmentalist Jay Westerveld coined the term “greenwashing” in 1986. She cited a hotel movement encouraging guests to “save the towels.” A marketing scheme to minimize cleaning efforts for hotels under the guise of being eco-friendly.

Greenwashing emerged between the rise of eco-awareness and before the internet. It had people concerned about the environment, with no easy way of checking if the claims made on television were valid. Arguably, though, even with the world of information at our fingertips, few of us take the time to fact-check the information we receive.

The lack of fact-checking allows us to be easily fooled by marketing campaigns that look “green.” All it takes is a few trees, a couple of cute animals, and a smiling face telling us products are all-natural and eco-friendly even if it’s making a negative impact on the environment.

For example, around the same time Westerveld published her essay, Chevron was running campaigns “The People Do” campaign encouraging people to do the right thing and protect the environment by getting their gas at Chevron stations. All while actively violating environmental acts and spilling oil into wildlife refuges.

Architects are one of the most notorious perpetrators of greenwashing. It’s easy to fool the general public and even those in the profession of the merits of rooftop gardens. Rooftops are generally unused space, and why wouldn’t you take advantage of that by planting trees. Beautiful renders cover the environmental cost of displacing a fully grown tree with a root system to match the visible mass on a rooftop.

While green roofs may be the poster child for architectural greenwashing, it’s only one of the many trends. We see plant-covered towers, claims of recycled materials, and talks of urban farms with no supporting infrastructure or education. Without proof, we should take these claims should be taken with a grain of salt. For example, many flooring products claim to be all-natural, 100% recycled material while they’re covered with a formaldehyde-based sealant. That’s not only terrible for the environment but also for residents. But, of course, the average user isn’t going to question the literal floor they walk on, and very few architects and designers are going to look that deeply into the products they spec for their projects. So we fall victim to greenwashing in the products we consume and the environment we live in.

The word sustainable is vogue, and we equate sustainable to nature. That’s not generally a flawed assumption to make, but as we’ve seen, it makes us susceptible to greenwashing, and it discredits sustainability that doesn’t have “the look.” As a result, we’re more suspicious of sustainability efforts that look like crazy science experiments, even though they’re backed by data and years of testing, than we are of anything slapped with the all-natural logo.

We’ve designed materials to be stronger, lighter, more conducive, and more resilient than those found in nature. Yet, nobody questions the strength of steel because it doesn’t appear “natural.” So we must ask, are we as a society unwilling to accept sustainability that’s doesn’t appear natural as being just as if not more potent. Fortunately, designers and engineers worldwide are doing just that and producing incredible results.

ecoLogicStudio Photo.Synthetica Curtain

EcoLogicStudio, based in London, is an architecture and design firm specializing in biotechnology for the built environment. They have been experimenting with data-driven sustainability since 2005 and boast a range of projects across scales. I’m endlessly fascinated by their Photo.Synthetica Curtain. The curtains use the power of algae to absorb carbon dioxide from the air. Just one square meter of the surface area allows the curtain to capture carbon equivalent to a large tree. When the curtain is draped over a building facade, it can capture and store approximately one kilo of CO2 per day, equivalent to 20 large trees.

NOxapture NOx Tile

NOxapture, a design collaborative, rethinks sustainability as a movement that complements our propensity for consumerism. NOxapture’s flagship product is a simple 6-inch biochar tile coated in titanium dioxide that neutralizes airborne pollutants as well as carbon dioxide. The tiles are designed using differential curves. As a result, they’re maximalist objects of beauty with maximal surface area for photocatalysis. While a single tile won’t make a noticeable difference, NOxapture embraces the idea of “one brick at a time” or “one tile at a time,” and the more carbon negative tiles produced and consumed, the more significant the environmental impact.

Recognizing the dangers of greenwashing and accepting nontraditional sustainability solutions are integral to environmental efforts in the coming years.

Recognizing the dangers of greenwashing and accepting nontraditional sustainability solutions are integral to environmental efforts in the coming years.