We’ve written reams about what sustainability means before on this blog. But that doesn’t stop us trying to find new ways to explain it to ourselves, and you.
To put something into perspective it often helps to contrast against something oppositional. So we we were thinking about how greenwashing compares to sustainability. They’re two vastly different things but there is some overlap.
Here is how we’d present that in modern emoji format, it’s somewhat impressionistic but we like to think we’re capturing something here and we’re about to tell you why.
Click for full version.
Now let’s look at each of these two areas on either side of the looking glass and what they’re all about…
Greenwashing
Greenwashing is a load of blah blah with a few tokenistic nice green things thrown in, like shallow tree planting. And hella suspicious stuff behind all that wholesome posturing. The reason that brands do this is to sell more successfully to people with an affinity for green concerns. So let’s shout about how kind we are on planet (or people) when actually we’re encouraging fossil fuel emissions at the same time, or whatever. That’s just one example and our blog on greenwashing examples has miscellaneous more, including some highly sneaky maneovres.
That’s a hasty overview. We’re written in a lot more detail about what greenwashing is and how to spot it.
True sustainability
True sustainability, on the other hand, is far more multifaceted. Of course it’s about the environment but it’s also about people and anything that supports a better future for coming generations. It’s also fair to say that sustainability has to sustain itself over time. There has to be growth involved so it’s not just a wishful concept. Yep, growth and economics should definitely not be enemies of sustainability; quite the opposite.
Compared to greenwashing, true sustainability is a bit like an ecosystem, with a lot of interconnections, which is why we’ve added some pollinators in the graphic above. It’s not just about the environment either, which is the typical connection that folk arrive at with sustainability. Rather, it’s a concept that has deeper implications that run the range. One of the aspects that sustanability covers is social justice and greenwashing tends to overlook those kind of subtleties with its single-minded focus on subterfuge.
That said, trying to find a universal definition for ‘sustainability’ is tricky and here we’ve written a good deal more on what sustainability means.
Anyway, let us know if we’re missing anything here or if our emoji representation could be smarter. And if you’re a brand looking for help on finding that fine line between greenwashing and impactful sustainability communications, just get in touch.
P.s. while we’ve covered greenwashing here, another dysfunction is greenhushing. This is complex but can occur when the demands and regulations of sustainability are too perfectionistic. What happens then is that brands go all quiet because they’re nervous about living up to expectations. Read more about that in our blog about what greenhushing is.
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