Environmental Leader

Green advertisers could soon get more eyeballs than they want. Enviromedia Social Marketing, which has been reporting from Bali for Environmental Leader, is launching the EnviroMedia Greenwashing Index and is calling on consumers to send examples of both good and bad green marketing campaigns. The site will feature TV, print and online ads. Visitors can then rank the ads.

“Awareness of greenwashing is starting to catch on – just like consumer concerns about climate change have in 2007,” says EnviroMedia CEO Valerie Davis. “This new Web site is the world’s first interactive online forum for educating consumers on the criteria for recognizing greenwashing.  It’s our hope consumers will know greenwashing when they see it, and that this will compel companies to strive for true green improvements that make their environmental marketing more genuine.”

EnviroMedia will reveal a compilation of the consumer greenwashing submissions and illustrate how consumers believe the ads stack up on its Greenwashing Index on Jan. 7, a day before the U.S. Federal Trade Commission holds its “Eco in The Market” forum in Washington, D.C., to address green advertising claims. The FTC recently announced it will accelerate by one year a review of its environmental marketing guidelines, due to a rapid rise in green advertising.