by Tom Price, Special to Corpwatch
April 22nd, 2002
Is fabric made from corn an eco-friendly wonder product or just more greenwash?
| US: Court Says Nike Must Defend its PR by Harriet Chiang, San Francisco Chronicle May 3rd, 2002 The California Supreme Court delivered a stiff warning to businesses Thursday, ruling that a San Francisco man can sue Nike Inc. for false advertising for allegedly lying about working conditions at Asian factories where its athletic shoes and clothes are made. |
| Fabric from Corn: Greenfleece or Greenwash? by Tom Price, Special to Corpwatch April 22nd, 2002 Is fabric made from corn an eco-friendly wonder product or just more greenwash? |
| USA: The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business by Tim Carvell, Adam Horowitz, Thomas Mucha, Business 2.0 April 1st, 2002 In a perfect world, a list like this would not exist. In a perfect world, businesses would be run with the utmost integrity and competence. But ours is, alas, an imperfect world, and if we must live in one where Enron, Geraldo Rivera, and Cottonelle Fresh Rollwipes exist, the least we can do is catalog the absurdities. |
| USA: Starbucks Beans Not So Green by Shireen Deen, Valley Advocate March 25th, 2002 By the end of the year, Starbucks will increase its ever-growing empire by opening a coffee shop in Mexico City -- the first Starbucks in Latin America. Ironically, Starbucks will soon be selling gourmet coffee to the very people who are under-paid for harvesting coffee beans. News of the Mexico City shop came as Starbucks was presenting its first Corporate Social Responsibility report at its annual shareholders' meeting in Seattle last month. The report emphasized the company's claimed commitment to doing business in socially, economically and environmentally responsible ways, to benefit the communities around the world where it does business. |
 | Philip Morris Changes Its Name But Not Its Tactics by Tom Price, Special to CorpWatch March 14th, 2002 Tobacco giant Philip Morris is undergoing a PR makeover. This Greenwash Award says the public won't be fooled. |
| INDONESIA: Running From Reebok's Hypocrisy by Alexander Cockburn, Los Angeles Times February 7th, 2002 Right till the end of January, Dita Sari was preparing to fly from her home near Jakarta to Salt Lake City to bask today in the admiration of assorted do-gooders and celebrities mustered by Reebok. The occasion is the 13th annual Human Rights Awards, overseen by a board that includes Jimmy Carter and Kerry Kennedy Cuomo. |
 | Greenwash + 10 by Kenny Bruno, CorpWatch January 24th, 2002 This new report documents corporate influence on the United Nations and calls on the UN to take measures for accountability. |
| USA: Ford CEO Says He's Green by Emilia Askari, Detroit Free Press October 31st, 2001 Lana Pollack, executive director of the Michigan Environmental Council, likes William Clay Ford Jr. so much that she says she did a little jig on the sidewalk in front of the Ford Motor Co. headquarters after they met to exchange views. |
| USA: DuPont's Goal -- Change Nature of Its Business by Harold Brubaker, Philadelphia Inquirer September 2nd, 2001 DuPont is trying to become a sustainable company but environmentalists are skeptical. |
| US: Nike Capitalizes on the Anti-Capitalists by Alicia Rebensdorf, AlterNet August 7th, 2001 An angry mob gathered around a train station, passing out photocopied flyers and shouting protests against an unjust company. Scrappy stickers were slapped on billboards, directing passers-by to a crudely designed website. The company they were railing against was a frequent target of grassroots activism: Nike. And the group running this guerilla-style anti-advertising campaign? None other than Nike itself. |
| USA: Seeing Through 'Transparency' by Rebecca Meyer, Daily Californian University July 10th, 2001 In a recent gesture of "transparency," Ford Motor Company reported that it was responsible for releasing approximately 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases annually, which amounts to a whopping 1 to 2 percent of all man-made emissions. |
| Nuclear Energy Industry: Sooo 20th Century by Kenny Bruno, Special to CorpWatch June 7th, 2001 The Award goes to the Nuclear Energy Institute for audaciously using a scooter riding teenage girl to claim that a polluting, highly dangerous, economically disastrous 20th century technology is our energy future. |
| Environmentalists Arrested at EPA Greenpeace April 19th, 2001 The Executive Director of Greenpeace, John Passacantando, the president of Rainforest Action Network, Randy Hayes, and nearly a dozen other activists locked themselves inside of the main entrance of the Environmental Protection Agency today. This protest was the latest in a series of pre-Earth Day activities against Bush's recent greenwashing of his anti- environmental agenda. All were arrested. |
| Earth Day 2001 Award: American Chemistry Council by Kenny Bruno, Special to CorpWatch April 19th, 2001 The ACC's Responsible Care Conference opens on Earth Day. Coming on the heels of revelations that chemical giants covered up the health hazards of their products to workers and communities -- that sounds like Irresponsible Care to us. |
| US: My Nike Media Adventure by Jonah Peretti, The Nation April 9th, 2001 Nike's website allows visitors to create custom shoes bearing a word or slogan -- a service Nike trumpets as being about freedom to choose and freedom to express who you are. Confronted with Nike's celebration of freedom and their statement that if you want it done right, build it yourself, I could not help but think of the people in crowded factories in Asia and South America who actually build Nike shoes. |
| Name Human Rights Themed Advertising CorpWatch March 22nd, 2001 CorpWatch is holding a contest to name the phenomenon of human rights themed or humanitarian advertising and PR campaigns. |
| Greenwash Campaign Profile March 22nd, 2001 CorpWatch gives out bimonthly Greenwash awards to corporations that put more money, time and energy into slick PR campaigns aimed at promoting their eco-friendly images, than they do to actually protecting the environment. Nominations for these Awards come from our audience. |
| A Brief History of Greenwash by Joshua Karliner, CorpWatch March 22nd, 2001 As the contemporary environmental movement built momentum in the mid-to-late 1960s, undermining the public trust in many a corporation, newly greened corporate images flooded the airwaves, newspapers and magazines. |
| Greenwash Fact Sheet CorpWatch March 22nd, 2001 The phenomenon of socially and environmentally destructive corporations attempting to preserve and expand their markets by posing as friends of the environment and leaders in the struggle to eradicate poverty. |
| Philip Morris: Killing to Make a Difference by Kenny Bruno, Special to CorpWatch March 22nd, 2001 Philip Morris spends more on image advertising than it does on charity. That's greenwash. |