by Richard Gilpin and Ali Dale

About the authors: Richard Gilpin and Ali Dale write for Red Pepper,a monthly left-wing journal concerned with protecting the environment.

Green petrol, ozone-friendly aerosols, plastic nappies that make great compost. . . . If you haven’t noticed this kind of oxymoronic labelling the chances are you’ve been ‘greenwashed’. Don’t take it personally, you’re not alone. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary has only recently put a name to one of the most pervasive phenomena of the past 20 years.

Polishing the Corporate Image

Several of the world’s largest companies now spend more on cleaning up their image than on promoting their products. The question is: are the public still able to differentiate between change and the illusion of change, or are we too greenwashed...