The government must take action against companies that engage in greenwashing. And she does. Long live the ACM!

VFrom the house in the woods I see trees and plants through every window. The blackbird sings and the tits chatter. I feel good and optimistic. My wife once looked outside during a train journey and said, in a fit of naive amazement, ‘There is so much green in the world.’ We laughed about that somewhat obligatory observation, which was nevertheless true.

There is a lot of green in countless shades. So beautiful and soothing. That expression has now acquired a winged status in our family. Green is good for people and important to preserve. Companies that are destroying it must be dealt with. Especially when they sell their nature-destroying rubbish with sustainable talk.

Companies do everything they can to sell their products and services. Last week I wrote that if they are not immoral, then at least amoral. Even airlines and oil companies do not shy away from making an environmentally friendly claim every now and then to get consumers on the green side.

I don’t know how that works for potential customers, but perhaps those companies win over customers if they give the impression that they are doing slightly better (less bad) than the competition? There are smart people working at such companies who really don’t throw expensive advertising out into the world if it doesn’t work that way.

Because they themselves are a bit loose in morality, the government must intervene. And now comes the great thing: she does that too! The independent body ACM (Consumer and Markets Authority) has recently been busy reprimanding companies that engage in greenwashing. For example, the regulator, together with European sister organizations, is calling on twenty airlines, including KLM, to stop claiming ‘green’, ‘sustainable’, talking about sustainable fuel and vague CO2 compensation programs within thirty days.

Albert Heijn must stop calling itself the most sustainable supermarket. I’ve written about that before. The supermarket group has invested a lot of money in a sustainable image for years, through attractive pictures and talk in stores and advertisements. This green marketing had an effect, because customers bought into it and named Albert Heijn the most sustainable supermarket in a survey. AH then made off with that election by advertising with ‘Most sustainable supermarket!’ (and in small letters ‘according to consumers’. The ACM no longer allows this.

Eneco is no longer allowed to advertise with ‘faster climate neutral’, Booking.com is no longer allowed to use the claim ‘travel sustainable’ and Plus was previously no longer allowed to use the term ‘climate neutral’. Zalando had to remove sustainability flags and images of trees and plants from the website. The ACM is clear: either the vague green claims will go away, or companies will show what they are actually doing to reduce their environmental impact. It is telling that companies would all rather stop their green marketing than make their sustainable efforts public. They also know that their talk is nonsense. But still: go ACM!