This word is what is known as a portemanteau – which means that the word was created by joining two words and combining their meanings. Think of what maybe you eat late on a Sunday morning – brunch. This is a combination of breakfast and lunch. Or how about smog , which resulted from smoke and fog?
So, greenwashing clearly comes from green and washing doesn’t it? Well, not quite, as it actually is a combination of green relating to environmental issues and whitewashing.
Whitewashing initially refers to the fact of painting a wall in white so it hides any imperfections or blemishes and looks cleaner. Metaphorically, it can be used to refer to a situation in which there is not total transparency in order to hide failings or to avoid blame.
We must maintain the integrity of the White House, and that integrity must be real, not transparent. There can be no whitewash at the White House.
Richard Nixon April 30 1973
Richardson quits Myanmar’s ‘whitewash’ Rohingya crisis panel
Reuters January 24 2018
So by combining these two concepts we arrive at the buzzword greenwashing . This is related to the concept of putting a “spin” on things, presenting them in a biased, i.e. not objective, manner, so they appear more positive.
It’s greenwashing when a company or organisation spends more time and money claiming to be “green” through advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimise environmental impact. So let’s take the example of McDonald’s swapping from single use plastic straws to paper ones and drawing attention to the fact in the media. This is used to refer to a company’s practice of making misleading claims about its products, politics or strategies to make them appear more “environmentally friendly” rather than less environmentally damaging.
