Yet again, The Nest management meeting was taken over by a discussion about the Everlane-Shein sale. To be fair to us, how is a girl supposed to get work done when “green” brands are selling to the world’s worst polluters? This kind of news doesn’t exactly foster an environment that’s easy to work in. Not everything is bad, though; this has inspired us to start our Tuesday meetings with a roundtable discussion about the major industry news happening each week. And it is now my job to report to all the Nesties a summary of our discussions!
Our discussion this past Tuesday essentially consisted of us each dissecting an example of greenwashing we think about often. Greenwashing is basically what we call companies making misleading claims about the sustainability of their policies, products, or operations. Greenwashing as a concept has been around since the 1980s, but it feels like the practice of greenwashing has significantly ramped up since the early 2010s. Or, maybe we’re all just more aware of the possibility of greenwashing and are skeptical of any “green” labels in the store. Either way, greenwashing as a marketing strategy isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
