Back in 1970, when Kermit the Frog first sang, “It’s not easy being green,” the word green didn’t equate to “environmentally conscious.” More than 40 years later, we now have “green” products, people, jobs, and even “the green economy.” We also have “greenwashing,” which Webster’s Dictionary defines as “expressions of environmentalist concerns especially as a cover for products, policies, or activities.”

 

Listen closely or read widely, and you’ll find that — as often happens with this rather malleable, usage-driven thing we call the English language — both “green” and “greenwashing” have become so over-applied and imprecisely used as to be virtually meaningless. However, as “green” signifies a linguistic trend rather than a fad, we’re likely to keep beating this horse until the YouTube video of its funeral goes viral.

 

Beyond semantics, “green” and “greenwashing” have acquired economic, political, and legal implications and ramifications. Conflicting studies say consumers are or are not willing to pay extra for green packaging, but in both cases, they expect consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies to provide it. But how does one know what qualifies as “green”? What is the most important criterion? Is it compostability, biodegradability, or recyclability? What about total carbon footprint? Does it matter how or from where the raw material is sourced? Should sustainability be the ultimate goal? Whose interests are more important — those of manufacturers (and their shareholders) or those of consumers?

 

As complex as those questions are on the surface, they become still more bewildering when one tries to define terms. What constitutes “biodegradability,” especially in regard to plastics? California continues to legislate answers to these questions (see the Los Angeles Times article "Plastic water bottle-makers sued by California over green claims" and the Californians Against Waste article, "California Recyclers Applaud New Recycling Rules"), but what does that mean in a national or continental context? Should governments (federal, state, and local) decide how to define "green" terminology, or should we just let the market sort it all out? 

 

These questions have come into sharper-than-ever focus for me in the past week as I heard the disappointing news of Archer Daniels Midland’s abrupt termination of its Mirel Bioplastics joint venture with Metabolix, watched a discussion on the recyclability of K-Cups in our Packaging Strategies LinkedIn group get a second wind, and learned that California has tightened up a 20-year-old set of regulations on the recyclability and recycled content of plastic packages [the Rigid Plastic Packaging Container (RPPC) program].

 

My conclusion: The answers to what’s “green,” how much it matters and to whom, and whether “green” is inherently good or just a political football are all about as clear as mud, and the issues aren’t likely to be resolved by a critical mass any time soon. Green is in the eye of the beholder.

 

— Heidi Parsons, Senior Editor