In this episode, Ananya Bhargava interviews Dr. Jacob Bethem, a professor at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. Focusing on the issue of greenwashing, the discussion explores how companies make sustainability claims, the challenges in distinguishing genuine efforts from marketing tactics, and the role of third-party certifications and regulations in promoting transparency.
Transcript
[Intro Music]
Ananya Bhargava: Concerns about climate change, pollution, and resource depletion are driving more people to seek out eco-friendly products and demand greater corporate responsibility. Consumers, often drawn to products marketed as environmentally friendly, may unknowingly support companies that do little to create real change.
I’m joined by Dr. Jacob Bethem, a professor at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. With degrees in philosophy, management, and a PhD in sustainability, plus 15 years of teaching and 10 years of management experience, he brings a unique perspective on how companies can balance ethics, science, and profit. In this episode, we’ll discuss what greenwashing looks like, how to identify real sustainability efforts, and the role of regulations, third-party certifications, and industry accountability in shaping a more sustainable future.
Bhargava: How do you think you would define “greenwashing”?
Jacob Bethem: To define it, I would take a step back and consider another term, which is more common and more familiar, perhaps, and that’s “whitewashing.” This is a term that’s often used in politics to describe when somebody is covering up something. So greenwashing is a form of that. You’re still trying to cover up something usually, but the green part of it refers to environmental sorts of things. So the most common form of greenwashing is that you claim to be more environmentally friendly than you actually are. You might even be damaging the environment in different ways that you don’t want people to know about. So you try to steer their attention elsewhere.
Bhargava: And so, why do you think greenwashing is such a pervasive issue in today’s marketplace?
Bethem: Well, I think there are many factors that contribute to that. One is that consumers are becoming smarter. They’re more interested in learning more about their products and services that they choose. Some of that is also inspired by regulations that are forcing companies to be more transparent in different ways. In the U.S., we’re a little bit behind, but in Europe, especially, there are more mandates to uncover business dealings.
Bhargava: So do you think there are any industries that are especially prone to greenwashing?
Bethem: I would say there are some that are more often suspected of greenwashing, but it would probably be industries that contribute more in terms of emissions, are more blatant about their harms to non-human creatures, maybe release more waste and toxins into the world that might damage our air, water, soil. So that could be farming, could be oil, it could be clothing and tourism. Those are some of the most impactful. Yeah, I could call out other industries, like who try to join forces with each other in a way that hides them in the mix. So, an example would be clothing alliances against fast fashion. If there’s a dozen different companies who say they’re “coming together to make a big change in the industry, and there’s so many of us, so it’s going to be powerful,” but in the next few years, you see that maybe they start dropping out. Maybe nothing gets done. They might blame too many chefs in the kitchen, so to speak, but they might not ever have had any intent to actually pursue these desires.
Another one is the marine transport industry. They’re claiming they’re coming together to try to reduce emissions going across the oceans and whatnot. And that one is still new, so we’ll wait to see if some actual action is taken with that one. Or another example is the beverage industry. Ocean plastics are a big problem, and it’s often traced back to the beverage industry, their bottles and cans getting loose into the ocean, causing litter. And so, they’ve banded together to supposedly do something about plastic waste. But there isn’t always. Even just maybe, this last week or so, banks, large banks in the U.S. and maybe a few international as well, had come together to manage green bonds better. And it was hopefully going to be a breakthrough in terms of financing. There’s already United Nations protocols on what green banking means, principles for it, but this group was going to actually start providing green bonds. And it’s not something that a typical consumer could buy. It’s usually at a commercial level. But now that partnership has fallen apart and may not recover. So there’s just a few examples of hiding in the crowd.
Bhargava: What would you say are some of the most common tactics you see in these industries? And how are the ways we can sort of identify that?
Bethem: Well, one common way to greenwash is simply by using misleading or maybe vague language. So you’ve probably seen products that are advertised as “natural,” “organic” or might even use inviting terms like “cage-free.” Those terms are not particularly well regulated here in the US, so there’s opportunity to use them in ways that the consumer might not understand your meaning behind and think differently about it. So it could portray you in a better sense to a common person, but be stretching the truth from an industry perspective.
Advertising gets a little bit of leeway in terms of ethics. We understand that product providers are going to exaggerate their products in different ways, and we give them a little bit of a long leash. However, they can’t say something that’s blatantly false. So we know that a company like a laundry detergent is going to say they get your whites the whitest, or simply just calling themselves “the best.” Some of those claims are unsubstantiated, but we don’t mind it. We know they’re just patting themselves on the back and trying to get you excited about it. But if you’re making some kind of medical claim, or stating something about the performance of your product versus a competitor, those things could get you in trouble if you’re not speaking truthfully.
Another method of greenwashing is to try to shift the blame on the consumer rather than taking responsibility yourself. So, there have been gas companies that will say customers want to buy gas. So how can we do something different? If gas is what they want, then gas is what we’ll give them. So that shifts the blame to consumers or manufacturers of supercars, they argue their customers want to have loud revving engines, which electric vehicles don’t typically have. We’ve even seen some manufacturers putting artificial noisemakers on their vehicles. Now, sometimes it’s for safety, because a quiet car could sneak up on someone, especially if they’re hearing impaired, but other times, it’s just for the aesthetics of the sound to have a specific muffler tune to it, even if it doesn’t have a muffler.
Bhargava: That’s interesting. And something that you also mentioned was how companies sort of put the blame on consumers when it comes to their unethical practices. And so what role does consumer education play in combating greenwashing? So what tools and resources can help consumers sort of identify and avoid greenwash products and not be the ones to blame?
Bethem: Yeah, as I said previously, I think consumers are becoming more inquisitive over time. Maybe a couple decades ago, it was more about the health impacts, personal health impacts of products on themselves and people in their community. And I think that has sort of progressed to digging even deeper about some of the other impacts that products and services have. And I think there’s a political element to it too. Leaders are becoming more well-known, and business people are becoming even wealthier. And so when there’s a large gap in the wealth of populations, it starts to bring curiosity into the mix, to say, “Why do they have it? I want that.” So I think that puts more eyes on it too. So as people start looking around and they’re starting to see where there are things that don’t add up, right, they want to know, “Do I have something wrong, or am I being misled?”
So to help figure out if you’re on the right track, there are some tools available. For instance, there are third-party organizations that attribute certifications to products to authenticate those claims that they are claiming. And some of those could be for instance, stamps from the Rainforest Alliance, stamps about Fair Trade. If you buy paper products, you might see something from the Forest Stewardship Council. If you look at seafood, you might see a sustainable seafood stamp on a box. So those kinds of organizations, their mission is to double-check these claims and to uphold the authenticity of them. And a similar example is carbon offsets. Carbon offsets are whenever a company makes an investment to try to balance the pollution that they’ve done by investing in some good like I said before, the conservation of trees or maybe investing in community renewable energy. And carbon offsets are also something that’s potentially misleading, because emissions happen in one spot, and whatever practice you’re doing to offset it happens in another spot. And there’s also differences in time. So planting a tree today doesn’t necessarily cool those emissions out of your power plant stack. So somebody needs to double-check that there are enough trees to capture that amount of emissions and to keep an eye on it over time. If I buy them today, and it’s a 10-year contract, I’ve got to keep my eye on it for 10 years. Otherwise, you know, if the forest burned down in five years, then that’s no good. I’d have to renew it and take new action.
Bhargava: And while you were talking about carbon emissions, I also thought that I know that manufacturing waste and then also the waste generated after the use of a product, are also really big things when it comes to sustainability. So do you have any thoughts on that, like what companies are currently doing about it? Is it enough?
Bethem: What you mentioned, we might call the “circular economy.” Instead of extracting, producing, using the product and then disposing of it, usually to a landfill or an incinerator, we want to introduce a circular economy. Where, after we’ve extracted something, we produce it still, we use it, but then we try to give it a new life, so that it cycles continuously. So for instance, if your cell phone dies, can you just replace the battery and get another year out of it? Or if your screen broke, replace the screen or a button, get some more life out of it. Or you just throw it away and get a new one? So it saves on resources, all the energy and water that goes into it as well. And then this sort of thing could also be manipulated, though, because sometimes a company will express that it’s giving a new life to something, but meanwhile, it might only be one new life. So it’s great to reuse something once, but you might actually be making things worse after that. There’s products such as wood-plastic hybrids that are now being used for decking. And while it’s good to give wood and plastic a new life in this new mixed hybrid product, what do you do with it? Whenever you’re getting rid of that deck, you tear it on that porch, and now you have this weird mixture of wood and plastic that would be much harder to reuse. You couldn’t just recycle it, for instance, you’d have to separate the wood and the plastic, which would be an intense process, and use a lot of energy to do that itself. So, we should be skeptical when we come across these claims, to try to investigate and think about a long-term future beyond just the one use.
Bhargava: Multiple shoe companies I know, four or five years ago, they did recycling campaigns where they were like, “bring in your old shoes, whatever brand they are, and we’ll recycle them, and then we’ll give you a discount on whatever new ones that you buy.” So, in that situation as a consumer, what should I be looking for and what should I be skeptical of?
Bethem: Yeah, we would want to see if there is a third party that is involved that could certify that they’re doing these sorts of things. There have been investigative studies that have put sensors on donated products to see where they wind up, to see if they actually do get back to the original manufacturer and repurposed. And we don’t always find that they get back to where they’re intended to go. In fact, it’s probably more often that they don’t get back to where they are intended to go, unfortunately.
Bhargava: You were sort of talking about how they don’t end up where they should end up based on where the company is advertising it to end up. So would you say that greenwashing ends up being more harmful because it fuels consumerism? Because, when you greenwash, it takes off some of that accountability and makes consumers feel more at ease that they’re not actually ruining the environment as much by buying more things.
Bethem: I think so, yeah. So eco-anxiety is a big deal, and as we tune into these movements and become more aware of what’s going on around us, it can be overwhelming at times. And so if an organization can come in and say, “Don’t worry, we have the solution.” That can make us feel real good and relieve some of those eco anxieties. So without that guilt, we might buy more and more. And you see these kinds of things happen with products that are meant to be better than their not-as-sustainable counterparts. For instance, reusable bags, reusable water bottles, reusable straws, these sorts of things. Sometimes people have a dozen of them, and you need to take into consideration that it might take hundreds of uses of that product in order to offset the use that you otherwise would have had with the non-renewable product. And so if you’ve got a dozen reusable bags, you need to be using all dozen of them every day, or you’re actually contributing more harm than good. So it can be misleading in that way.
Bhargava: If, let’s say, you’re consulting with a company and they want to be more ethical and more sustainable in their practices and not greenwash and be more authentic, what would be the advice that you would give them to be actually authentically green?
Bethem: I would say it’s to do your homework to try to find the real impacts. You could use different processes that are now established in the field, such as the SASB – Sustainable Accounting Standards Board – or GRI which is the Global Reporting Initiative. You can look for similar organizations within your industry that can help you to make the calculations about environmental impacts, such as doing life-cycle analysis. That’s when you look at a product from extraction to end of life, and you calculate all the different resources that go into it, the energy, the water, the materials, the waste it creates, the toxins that are used or produced that way, you have an evaluation of all the impacts that it makes along the way, and you could start to improve the supply chain and the processes you use as you’re providing those goods and services to your clients.
Bhargava: Could you discuss that intersection of profitability and genuine sustainability efforts? So do you think that profitability and sustainability are always at odds, or do you think that it’s actually possible for sustainability to be something that actually helps a company and increases profits and just overall, makes a better impact for everyone involved?
Bethem: I would say that 10 and even 20 years ago, whenever sustainability was becoming a big push around the turn in the new millennium, it was very common, because sustainability was an innovative, groundbreaking, sort of pioneering perspective, in some sense. In another sense, it’s been around for 100 years, but in the sense that it was becoming more popular and coming into its own, in the way that we see it today, things were more expensive. Electric vehicles were more expensive. To electrify your house would be more expensive, to get better insulation for home, and a more efficient furnace would be more expensive. And we call that a “green premium.” But these days, as these solutions become more widespread, there’s economies of scale that happen. The more people buy something, the less it costs to produce them, because you can produce them in mass instead of one-off. So these days, there are many different sustainability solutions that could actually save you money right up front, rather than always having to cost more than the alternative. And even when it is the case that something might cost more than the alternative, I would encourage people who are entering the sustainability field trying to make a difference in their organization, even if you don’t have a budget, to start looking for ways that you can save money for your organization. Then maybe some of that money that you save, you could negotiate into a budget for yourself. So, if you can start to make some low-hanging fruit wins, you start to build up some credibility, and then through that credibility, you’re able to request more to have a better budget for yourself. We have to remember that sustainability is at least the triple bottom line. It’s multi-dimensional that we’re trying to balance the eco and community impacts along with the financial side of things. An organization that usually doesn’t survive if it doesn’t have at least enough funding to keep it afloat. So profit isn’t always a bad thing if it’s reinvested in positively impactful ways.
Bhargava: When companies come out specifically advertising some green aspect of their business or product, what’s your thought process looking into that? Does that make you feel hopeful, or do you recognize certain patterns of greenwashing and it makes you more skeptical, like, how do you approach those?
Bethem: I think one important trend is that companies are becoming more transparent about their operations and their impacts. That gives me optimism, because a problem that’s hidden is not one that’s easily managed. So if companies can appreciate whenever they make mistakes as an opportunity to grow and get better, I think that’s a better attitude than just being upset that somebody criticized you and being defensive about it, maybe even refuting it. “No, that’s not me. I didn’t do that.” Instead, if you own up to it and you say, “Well, I didn’t see it that way, but I’m glad you pointed it out, and now I’m going to try to try to do something better to fix it.” I think you’ll win over a lot more people that way. And business is all about winning over people, right? I’ll ask students, what is the purpose of business? And first they say,” to make money,” but often you have to remind them to make money, you have to provide a good or a service that someone needs. So, if you remember that fulfilling somebody’s needs is at the heart of business, then it makes you a little more humanitarian.
Bhargava: Now, sort of looking towards the future, how do you see corporate sustainability evolving, maybe in the next 5-10 years?
Bethem: Yeah, it’s difficult to say how things will go, especially with administrations changing back and forth and often being radically different from each other on certain key issues. So I think in the next five years, we’ll see a good bit of back and forth where there’s going to be some steps made sometimes, but it might be two steps forward, three steps back, or vice versa. So I think that we’ll continue to see a little bit of tumultuous turnover and some back-and-forth happening.
Bhargava: Do you have any advice for both future marketers and people going into sustainability, and then also consumers. What are the actionable things that they can do to sort of prepare for this kind of future and to sort of promote a more sustainable future?
Bethem: Well, I’m a teacher, so I’m going to say knowledge is power, and I’m going to remind everyone that we have great sustainability classes at ASU, so I would encourage everyone to educate themselves and to learn more about the impacts that they might be taking for granted. Similarly, when we’re talking about ethical issues, just as we might not realize that sustainability is a field of its own with established frameworks and whatnot, ethics as well is not just a matter of opinion. There are time-tested principles that lead to certain actions being more likely to be ethical while others are more likely to be unethical if they fit that criteria. So taking more sustainability and ethics classes is what I would say, in a self-serving way, but also for the better of the world, I think.
Marketers could help support the cause more if they don’t just narrow themselves to just the marketing, if they could use their voices as a springboard for more change in their organization. Similarly, I would hope that journalists would do the same thing to be advocates for the community. Because if business is part of the problem, then that means it’s also part of the solution, as we try to change it for the better.
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