25.8.08

A Note on Green Labels

The article below is definitely a promising turn of events. Although several environmentalists blame multinational corporations for the majority of the destruction of our environment they have the resources and the power to fuel the innovation in new environmentally beneficial technologies such as this one.

That being said, there is always an issue of "greenwashing" taking place when companies begin to promote their environmentally-friendly policies and products. Although green is good, sometimes when a company attaches a "green" label to a product, the truth is the product/company may be masking what they are actually doing during the production process of all their products.

Before I go further I do not believe Google is necessarily greenwashing their image to the public (I am sure there are those who disagree). I think they are making a tentative investment in a new technology (that is the nature of business, you weigh the risk and invest according). Although it would be very encouraging to see Google invest $100 million into the project, they are nonetheless a business.

However there is still something to be said about those green labels you see on many of the new products on our store shelves. To be honest, buying a 'green' product is not going to save the planet. Conserving energy, buying less, reducing our consumption of nonrenewable resources and doing our homework before we buy a product are the best ways to make a positive impact on the environment. It is only common sense to not believe everything you read! Caveat emptor fellow environmentalists!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You are completely right. People think that by buying "green" products, which are not all necessarily as environmentally sound as we are made to believe, that they are doing their part to save the environment. But it's not enough! Like you said, we need to personally take action to conserve and be more efficient.