Sep

We Don’t Need A “Green” Everything.

Posted by david under Uncategorized

Not everything needs, or should, be labeled or branded as being “green”. Have you guys noticed how every company on the face of the earth is starting to label their product, no matter what it is, as “green”? I have – and one that stands out as of late is an “Eco-Friendly Paintless Auto Dent Repair” business. Really? Did you really need to label that business as eco-anything at all? I would have used your service regardless of your self-proclaimed green-ness, as paintless dent removal is paintless dent removal. Labeling it as “eco-friendly” just looks kind of like a greenwash to me, and I don’t think anyone is going to fall for it. There is no need for everything to be green — some things can just… be. My friend Adam over at Twilight Earth made an explicit point recently about all things “green” in a post titled “Green Wont Be The Norm, Until We Stop Calling Things Green“, and I could not agree more. By continuing down the path of labeling everything under the sun “green”, the word and meaning gets entirely diluted and no longer has meaning.

greencar We Dont Need A Green Everything.

Photo by Shutterstock

While I do still think we need to be able to differentiate between “good” and “not so good” when it comes to the products we buy, at least until everything becomes “good”, we do not need everything to be given the green label. Some things just don’t need it – like my paintless dent removal example above.

It’s one thing to try to greenwash us by claiming your product is eco-friendly when it really isn’t. It’s another to just use the phrase at will for no reason at all, without even trying to explain its use.

Please, manufacturers and corporate marketing people — not everything needs to be green. Sometimes it’s OK for a product to just be what it is!