Businesses engaging with energy efficiency initiatives need to do so without “greenwashing” their achievements or risk putting consumers off, industry professionals have said.
Business energy efficiency has become an increasingly prominent point of discussion and a large number of leading firms now boast both significant achievements in their sustainability drives and ambitious targets for future improvements.
The Climate Group’s RE100 programme has seen more than 50 multinational firms commit to deriving their entire energy demand from renewable sources and a number of other large firms have publicly pledged to operate in increasingly sustainable ways.
While the majority of these are well received by consumers Tim Balcon, chief executive at the Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment, told Clean Energy News that there was now an element of businesses “using sustainability as a brand exercise”.
Balcon’s comments were echoed during last week’s Clean Energy Summit where Joanna Yarrow, sustainability manager for IKEA UK & Ireland, said there had “been a bit of customer toe-curling when it comes to green claims” made by some firms.
Balcon continued by warning that companies doing so risk tarring the sustainability industry “with the lowest common denominator”.
“It’s greenwash, and consumers can see through that…. if you jump on a bandwagon and create a greenwashed, green brand, this is where the whole sustainability industry starts getting a bad reputation,” he said.
Balcon added that it was down to firms doing sustainability “properly” to show leadership by educating others, and sharing their own initiatives.
“In fairness what I’m seeing is a lot of those companies – the Jaguar Land Rovers of the world – are actually taking that sustainability message to other businesses that have no relevance to their company, [and] what they feel is that the more people embracing it the better they’re going to be,” he added.
