Nike is Going Green!

I just finished reading an article in Communication Arts on the efforts that the Nike brand is making in “going Green.” Beyond the traditional “greenwashing” (the author explains what that means) of the brand to market itself as a green company, Nike is taking a look at and investing in new green materials and resource companions to take it's various lines of products into the realm of corporate responsibility through sustainable approaches toward resource usage and consumption. It sounds like a good thing and I am sure it will be.

This got me thinking about marketing (my bachelor's degree in college was in business-M.I.S. and I was only two classes short for a minor in marketing and my brain never lets me live that down... why didn't I just finish that degree minor?) Right now companies use “green” as a differentiator, but this effort by Nike seems different to me, rather than just an adoption of a new differentiator. The more extensive review of sustainable-conscious decisions marks the very early beginning of the end of green as a differentiator by making less of a greenwash and more of an effort to actually just, well, be-green.

As a consumer we might want to be aware of the difference between green as a differentiator (i.e. the greenwash) and going-green as a matter of adopting a sustainable ideology. Right now, for example, I am becoming a big fan of Mac computers (i have spent 20+ years with PCs and my recent Macbook Pro purchase marks the purchase of my most solid computer to date!) The Mac packaging talks about having green values, but Apple as a company has one of the lowest ratings for actual green-production of their equipment. In contrast to Nike going-green, Apple is an example, at the moment, of greenwashing. Hopefully that will change.

As we go forward, hopefully more companies will actually go green rather than just greenwash their products. As smart consumers, if we are to go-green then we should want to understand the difference. Until going-green is the new standard and we simply have to watch out for the exceptions, the responsibility rest with us to get this right.

Which brings me to my final point. Political campaigns, especially here in 2008, are making “green” a talking point. But you have to watch out for greenwashing there as well. Let me show a few examples.

The U.N. since the late 1990 has setup an initiative to promote what they are calling the “Millennium Development Goals” or “the Millennium Project” for short. The idea here is that across a broad spectrum of issues the U.N. wants to standardize some values across the planet, all by 2015. One of those goals has to do with the environment.

Under the Millennium Project entire countries would be awarded limits with regard to Carbon emissions. If you are deemed in breach of your carbon emission limits then you have to purchase Carbon emissions offsets from a country that has not breached their limits. This “trading” would happen through the U.N. Equally as important, a country can reduce their Carbon emissions within their borders by buying offset credits by investing in “green” companies (typically, these are companies that are researching alternative power or are currently generating alternative power.)

So the natural question is, “How does this plan actually help us go-green?” A simple example helps us see how this works in the real world.

After the extreme popularity of the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, it was discovered that the film creator Al Gore's personal home in Tennessee consumed as much power within three months as did the average American's home in one year. In other words, for being so concerned with the worlds need to go-green, his personal lifestyle wasn't by a household factor of 4 to 1 as compared to current average Americans. Now, as an American that has to make you feel pretty good, right? Al Gore blows the whistle on the need to go green and you find out that without even trying you are four times more green than Al Gore himself! To be fair Mr. Gore explained that he was investing in offsets by paying into green energy companies. So while he continued to consume four times the energy of everyday mainstreet folks, his offset investment brought him back down to average. Well, good for him. After all that whistle blowing we Americans are still the “green” standard.

Please, tell me you don't buy that? For one, everyday I can see opportunities to get even more green and while some of them I could do right now, a big one will be when we do away with our very consumer-driven disposable lifestyles. Breaking our dependence on bad non-green habits and lifestyles will truly mark the moment we all really go-green. You might be asking yourself, “How does this example explain the difference between going-green and a greenwash on the political scene?”

Buying carbon offsets just simply equals buying the right to not go-green. It is nearly by definition a greenwash. What is worse is that as a nation, to buy into the U.N. Millennium Project goals we have to pay off entire countries in the form of “offsets” to bare the weight of us not going-green. What would that really mean? What would become of that money? How will giving them money really equal an environmental offset of harm?

I am all for going green, but I am starting to think that this is a greenwash on a new U.N. world tax that simply “spreads the wealth around” on a global level. The U.N. as a political entity seems to be greenwashing their agenda.

In terms of U.S. politics we see the same thing going on with regard to oil dependancy. Since oil production and consumption is also green issues we are hearing a lot about “breaking the American addiction to oil.” Universally our Presidential candidates are talking about drilling for more oil, so no points for breaking dependance there. John McCain talks about Nuclear power, and reluctantly Obama talks about at best a willingness to pursue nuclear, so points to John McCain and the jury is still out on Obama because of the reluctance. John McCain has alos outlined a plan for America to lead the world in nuclear waste storage and management, which might actually mean we would train the world on how to deal with nuclear waste, so points to John McCain on that initiative. Obama doesn't even mention this other than to say that he won't think about nuclear unless we can store the waste safely (meaning he hasn't really gained an understanding in this area) so no points there either. Both candidates are fine with clear coal technology, so points there, even though the message from Obama has gotten washed out by the confusion brought to light by Democrat Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden, so those clear carbon points should relaly be pending as well. Obama gets some points for investing in green vehicles, as does John McCain. John McCain also is proposing a automobile power storage initiative award for companies that would race to build incredibly practical long distance zero emissions cars. Big points to John McCain on that one. Obama wants to give money to people to offset higher gas prices likely generated by raising corporate taxes AND implementing windfall profits taxes on Oil companies. This should be negative points, since he is going to raise the consumer fuel prices due to dual tax increases from multiple fronts, and then simply give the consumer more money specifically to offset the rising fuel costs. This is like battling drug addiction, by taxing drug dealers and then giving people more money to make those same drugs cheaper. Clearly, this plan makes no sense. John McCain claims that this would be similar to what Jimmy carter did during his administration, which had little to no benefit for the country. Obama wants to implement low carbon use standards nationally. This means what exactly? We don't know yet. It might just mean that he, like the U.N., will implement our own little internal Carbon tax. What is not clear is if we as citizens will also have to start paying carbon taxes. Again negative points for Carbon taxes, since they don't reduce the problem but rather make bank on the nature of the problem. Both Obama and McCain talk about increasing fuel efficiency of vehicles, so points to both on that since it means more green. Obama talks about prioritizing the Alaska naural Gas Pipeline. This one actually goes to Sarah Palin, even though Obama wants to claim it. Points to Sarah. John McCain also proposes tax reduction to Americans who buy zero emissions cars. Points to John McCain. John McCain talks about endorsing Flex Fuel Vehicles (something that has been successful in Brazil) that can run on E85 fuel with no loss in performance, so more points to John McCain. John McCain wants to see cellulosic alcohol fuels become an alternative to oil and eventually E85 (cellulosic fuel doesn't compete in corn crop generation as a food source) so points, again, to Mr. McCain. John McCain wants to re-examine tarrifs so that other fuel aternatives beyond just ethanol fuel alternatives can create oil competition, making room for more green alternatives. Points again for John McCain. Both candidates have green jobs initiative plans to bolster the “green economy”, so points to both.

In the end, the U.N. carbon tax plan is a greenwash fundamentally. Obama seems to implement these greenwash taxing ideas as the majority of his plan to deal with non-green behavior. Worse yet he is going to increase the demand by helping finance non-green consumption at the same time, proving that the plan is simply a Federal fundraiser as opposed to a real plan to go-green. There are a number of items that both Obama and McCain agree about, like having initiatives for more fuel efficient vehicles, but McCains plan goes further to address automotive fuel alternatives that are more green or even zero emission approaches. McCain also has practical detailed plans for pursuing nuclear and leading the world in nuclear waste management.

My conclusion is that there is some greenwashing in both campaigns, but it seems to me that there is more of a plan to go-green under John McCain than under Barack Obama. Said another way, McCain is investing in rewarding going-green while Obama is focused on punishing non-green behavior without much of a real plan for going green, which again, seems more like a Federal fundraiser than a plan to go-green.