green-vox | WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE.

that's absurb. and that's good.

Today, Alex Williams in his NY Times article "Buying into the Green Movement" makes some really good points.  Namely, we are not going to consume our way out of global warming.  (RED) will not save the world.  In fact, it could be argued that GAP is doing more harm than good.  Making "Green the new Black" creates an aesthetic that can go away in the blink of a fashion show.  Not consuming isn't the choice either.  Smart consuming is.

But consider old Hegal again.  Maybe the pendulum needs to swing to absurdity before it can fall back to synthesis, that place where elements of pro-sumerism are ingrained in the culture not the fad dujour.   

We wonder what the difference in spending on social issues is like from corporatation from same 1980 to 2007?  I bet it's a huge leap.  That's good.  All those dollars are having some educational and thought-provoking impact, we assume.

If we are waiting for that pendulum to apex to the side of absurdity before drifting back to common sense, we may have a very short wait.

Greenwashing Works.

Dr. Paul Ray is the man who identified Cultural Creative as a sub-culture.  He's super-smart.  His mantra at most of the conferences we've seen him at has been "authenticity at all cost."  He claims that "real" Cultural Creatives crave authenticity and will shun products that are not authentically green. 

If he's right, the market is near its peak.  If he's wrong, Greenwashing will work and the market can expand into the mainstream.  Most American's don't crave authenticity.  In fact, they prefer a synthetic, soma-laden, existence...

Professionally we say this:  Authenticity is important for the early adopters.  It is less important for the larger marketplace.  There are still more SUV's parked at WholeFoods than there are Greasers...Authenticity counts for sub-cultures, not for mainstream America.

We ask this:  Can Greenwashing be used to the advantage of a greener America?  Could it possibly be a tool to educate?

News makes news.

The recent New York Times article about green marketing has caused quite a flurry of activity at Dwell Creative.  John has been interviewed by quite a few  publications including the Washington Biz Journal and FirstWord, a publication by Futurist agency Z+Partners.

The FirstWord article should be interesting.  John got to talk about the Hegelian Dialectic and his theory of the impending Language War over language used in green marketing. 

Here's a summary:

The greening of America will create a bubble not unlike a housing bubble or the tech bubble.  It will pop.  Nothing can sustain the trajectory the movement has now.  So how do we keep the momentum?  By meaning what we say, and doing things for the right reasons - NOT just because there is a growing market.  Hegel's pendulum will rest back at Synthesis-it always does, but in the meantime, we can enjoy time in the upswing.  As Scooter's mom used to say,  "nothing ever changes and it never gets any better."

The Language War starts in 1 year.  The color green will become trite and Dark Greens will re-invent their own more aggressive language to counteract  green-washing.

We'll post some of the articles here once they come out.

Walking the Walk.

When Dwell was interviewed in the New York Times a week ago, Caudia Deutsch asked some very pointed questions about "why we care if companies are greenwashing or not, as long as their actions did in fact speak louder than their words. "  I guess that old axiom cuts both ways.  Can you walk the walk but not talk the talk?

Wal-Mart is a great example.  They are taking very large strides to reduce energy costs.  As the single largest commercial user of electricity in the U.S., it makes good financial sense.  As consumers start to care more about their own purchase choices, greening wal-mart makes good economic sense too.  is it part of their mission?  No, but why else would Wal-Mart’s vice president for strategy and sustainability, drive 6,000 feet to the Mount Washington Observatory  in New Hampshire with Steve Hamburg, an environmental studies professor at Brown University, and Fred Krupp, the president of the advocacy group Environmental Defense. to talk about climate change?  They are at least interested.  That's something, right?  A start even?  Crap, is greenwashing working even on the most jaded of skepticals?

But it doesn't end there.  They have other issues.  Keep an eye out for a post we're working on about green Convergence - the merger of sustainability and ethics.   For a great review of Wal-marts actions and citenzenry, read Joel Makower's blog here. 

Let's be Frank

We recently ran into a small collection of online videos of a pbs series, Frontline: The Persuaders. In the 5th episode, "Give Us What We Want", Frank Luntz describes how to get the people to hear the ideas that you are trying to tell them. He has truly mastered the art of spinning language, or just using the right language. We could linger on the discussion of the integrity of his work but we only bring him up to show how words can be manipulated to create an easier to hear language.

Is it hard to prove the authenticity when the language we use is so vulnerable to variable interpretations? The words in our society are the invention to our reality. Advertisements can spread an entirely new belief in our society. Which comes first, the language or our reality?

Earth Day's Shareholders.

On April 22nd, 1970, 20 million Americans joined together in demonstrations designed to place the environment at the front of the political globe.

April 22, 1990 saw 200 million participants and 141 countries. It launched common lexicon into our packaging for consumable -  one out of every four new products released at the time were labeled "recyclable," "biodegradable," "compostable" or "ozone friendly."  "Friendly" is an interesting word, perhaps for another post.

April 22, 2004 a NY Times article by Geoffrey Johnson of the Green Life, started like this:

Welcome to Earth Day 2004, brought to you by petroleum powers, big-box developers, old-growth loggers and chemically dependent coffee companies trying to paint their public image green.

Johnson cited:

The Earth Day cleanup and restoration program held by the California State Parks Foundation  which was financed by ChevronTexaco,  and Erin Brockovich's Pacific Gas and Electric.

Starbucks has its own events, centered around its latest slogan, "More than our logo is green" despite    their unwillingness to label products as  using genetically modified ingredients.

This point begs the language argument of control.  S/he who controls the language controls the space the language is designed to control.  We don't assume all of corporate America is greenwashing because they use a lexicon common to the bright greens, but we are more willing to challenge the assumption that they are not greenwashing.  Is that because of size, and/or fear of control?

No doubt that the language of being green is the first weapon to be used against any "green movement."  But what about physical space - the space of grass roots events?  We wonder if, like corporate America, size is suspect to corruption.  Google is going through it now fighting to protect their "do no evil" mantra publicly.  Ed Abbey said that "growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."

Does a movement have to stay at the grass level to be authentic?  What are the expectations of Earth Day's shareholders?  Solid returns, no doubt.  But is the system suspect because of size, or because of the new wave of sponsors?  Or because we can't talk about it without  being sponsored ourselves ?

Where we sit.

From a humble office in Portland Maine (where it has yet to snow as of Dec. 29), comes yet another blog.  We apologize.  We’ve been contemplating and playing with the idea for about year now.  The ad agency where we work has a philosophy "we already work in a deceitful industry, let’s not junk it up with more meaningless design.” We felt the same about blogging. (Read the complete manifesto here.) But over the years we’ve become known for our focus on language -specifically language used in advertising “green” products-so we decided to focus on that.  The fact that we are obliged to use quotes around “green” should be a clue.

It will be about language, but broadly defined.  Linguistic theorists may get bored quickly, but we want your thoughts.  It’s really a broader context as language is applied to advertising and promotion.  We’ll be looking at words, designs, campaigns, press releases, packaging, color theory, tv, radio, greenwashing…anything that is used to sell a product or idea related to environmental, cultural and natural resources.