The Green Marketing Façade

This is a guest post by Simon C. Moore, a Biology graduate and science writer who is interested in conservation and the human animal. For more of his writing check out his blog www.simonthescientist.wordpress.com and follow him on twitter @Simon_C_Moore.

People are beginning to acknowledge that humans are having huge damaging effects on the global climate (not to mention most species we share this planet with). There are over 7 billion of us now, and despite it being hard to comprehend, we are starting to understand that our individual actions can have global consequences, especially if we work together in a positive way. However, we must keep sight of the reasons for changing the way we live our lives, and not just follow the status quo without question.

It is concerning that there is a growing trend for businesses to market themselves and their products as being green, eco-friendly, organic, all-natural, sustainably-sourced and chemical-free¹. Of course we need businesses to be environmentally conscious, but the use of these words is often unregulated and the claims are made without backing; they simply use a green façade to trick decent people into buying their products or services, a practice known as ‘Greenwashing'. On top of this, some of the phrases are simply meaningless (chemical free!?) and yet they cleverly convince people by using attractive, green buzzwords. So be careful not to assume that everything marketed as being ‘green' is necessarily the best option for the environment; often the product may not be as green as it appears, and in some cases the so-called green option is not always the most environmentally friendly.

Green marketing tends to make use of people's generalisation that all ‘natural' stuff is good, and all ‘unnatural' stuff is bad. This is known as the Naturalistic Fallacy. This might not sound like a terrible thing for an environmentally concerned member of society to believe, but it actually gives a distorted view of the world and new technologies in particular. By being more knowledgeable about how small changes in lifestyle impact the environment, people will see that some of the apparently bad, non-natural stuff, such as genetically modified (GM) food, is actually the more eco-friendly option.

Technologies that drove the industrial revolution must clearly take some of the blame for the climatic situation we are now in, but they also allow us to live our modern sedentary lives, with our lights, phones and cars. What we need to accept is that technology is going to be one of the keys to solving our current crisis, allowing us to produce more food, clean energy and enough water to accommodate our growing world population. New technologies must be used with caution, but they shouldn't be stigmatised and fought against for reasons other than scientific or ethical!

Two particular hot topics across the world revolve around the production and consumption of organic vs. conventionally farmed food, and GM vs. non-GM food. There are plenty of articles^2,3,4 you can delve into on these debates but I'll try to give a brief summary of each below. Keep in mind that food technologies are being developed such that they can pass stringent safety standards and help increase food yields whilst using fewer inputs, thus reducing negative impacts on the environment. All new technology has risks associated with it, but if these are minimised, it can be used to solve a problem and improve quality of life.

Organic debate
Organic farming is a technique that avoids the use of all synthetic (but freely uses ‘natural'!) chemical supplements, such as fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. It is desirable because it reduces the risk of eutrophication (from run-off of fertilizers into rivers), lowers the impact on native wildlife and is (falsely) seen as being healthier due to its more natural production techniques. However, it can require more land to produce the same amount of food, as its methods are less intense - nitrogen is less readily available⁵. This means more natural habitat has to be destroyed in order to farm organically, causing an arguably more severe impact on native fauna and flora.

GM debate
GMO's⁶ are organisms which have had their genome altered by adding or removing certain genes, sometimes from different species. This allows specific traits to be added, removed or enhanced, such that an organism grows faster, is more nutritious, has greater tolerance to drought or flooding, or requires fewer nutrient inputs, for example. However, some people are concerned from an ethical standpoint, with the idea of ‘playing god', despite the fact that we have been making changes like these since the dawn of agriculture. Others fear potential safety issues resulting from modifying incompletely understood genomes, yet 10 years and €200 million of EU-funded research has concluded that GM crops are no more risky than conventional plant breeding technologies⁷. A final fear is of the ability of corporations to take advantage of farmers (by selling them seeds that can't reproduce themselves, thus creating a reliance), although this could be alleviated if governments started taking responsibility in funding this promising technology!

All too often arguments for organic and against GM foods are not based on scientific evidence; they merely preach consumption of ‘natural' products, as though this gives them some special power or desirability. But as long as they are safe for us and the environment, there is no sense in avoiding production techniques and breeds of crop/livestock that are potentially superior in efficiency to so-called ‘natural', ‘eco-friendly' methods of organic and non-GM. Fertilisers and pesticides played integral roles in the (aptly named) Green Revolution in the middle of the 20th century. During this time great technological advances were incorporated into agricultural practices worldwide, thus creating a huge increase in productivity that arguably saved over a billion people from starvation⁸. Additionally, all domestic breeds of plants and animals have been artificially selected for the last 10,000 years or so; the only difference with using genetic techniques is that changes can be made much more accurately and precisely, instead of just by trial and error. This speeds up the process of modifying an organism from its wild type to something that is nutritious, fast-growing and high yielding, though we must be cautious of compromising the well-being of domesticated animals in particular. All of this is to say that ‘unnatural' technologies have been helping us produce food for millennia, and it is important now more than ever that we continue to increase efficiency so that we reduce our damaging effects on the world's fragile environment.

While it is encouraging to see that the environment is rising up the list of society's concerns, now is the time when greatest scrutiny should be imposed on those publicising their green methods. This will ensure we do not get tricked by marketing façades that don't actually benefit the environment. We must also remain open to new and 'unnatural' methods of agricultural practice which have the potential to help alleviate our severe global resource strains, instead of shunning them on misguided moral grounds.

References