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Charmin Greenwashing—Charmin Sustainability Promise: Go Beyond

Charmin Toilet Paper is an exemplary brand that demonstrates greenwashing tactics at their finest. I was first intrigued with Charmin’s greenwashing strategies due to my dad who is a Civil Engineer specializing in water mains and sewers. For over 30 years he has worked for various municipalities in Ontario, including the City of Toronto, the City of Vaughan, the Region of York, and currently the City of Brampton. As such, he has a vast experience working with city pipelines and one thing he hates is flushable wipes. This is due to the enormous amount of damage they cause to city pipelines, which is surprising considering that these wipes are advertised as “flushable”, and “approved by plumbers”. According to my dad:

“[The people]… that operate the sanitary sewage systems have indicated that flushable wipes clog city pipelines which creates [further] clogging at Wastewater Treatment Plants. These treatment plants contain household disposal water, as well as disposal water that comes from businesses and industrial facilities. The advice of [those] that operate these plants is not to use flushable wipes in spite of what product manufacturers are selling and telling consumers to use.” (Persaud, 2020)

Essentially, regardless of what they are being advertised as, flushable wipes have severe impacts on sewage systems and Wastewater Treatment Plants. Learning this from my dad caused me to look into one of the most popular brands of toilet paper: Charmin. While researching Charmin, not only did I discover the misconception of flushable wipes, but also the greenwashing antics that are used by the Protector & Gamble Company with the Charmin Sustainability Promise: Go Beyond.

The Go Beyond initiative outlines many goals that Charmin claims to do to ensure environmental sustainability. Some of these goals include growing  and protecting forests globally by planting one tree for every tree that is used; helping to make sustainable solutions easier for families by investing in fiber innovation; and not participating in deforestation practices (Charmin, 2020). The Go Beyond initiative demonstrates a variety of green advertising measures that present the grounds for greenwashing. For example, many green terms are used such as “sustainability”, “recycle”, “regrow”, “reduce”, “protect”, and so on. The environmental discourse outlined throughout the initiative is used as a marketing strategy to sell Charmin’s products (Prody, 2016: 94). Additionally, the use of colours and imagery outlined on the Go Beyond page portray environmental-friendly depictions which have the power to shape the way that consumers perceive the brand as being “green” (Parguel et al., 2015: 108). This demonstrates the influence of greenwashing within the brand when in fact, a large portion of the initiative’s claims are misleading.

           In 2019, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a report called “The Issue with Tissue: How Americans are Flushing Forests Down the Toilet”. This report outlines Charmin as a failing household tissue brand in regards to sustainability (Skene & Vinyard, 2019: 6). This is shocking considering the way the Go Beyond project is portrayed, yet the NRDC notes Charmin as one of the least sustainable household tissue brands. This unsustainability comes from a few factors. For one, a lot of Charmin toilet paper comes from clearcutting Canadian boreal forests (Skene & Vinyard, 2019). Canadian boreal forests are important as they provide habitats for a majority of wildlife including birds, caribou, and some endangered species; and boreal forests are a pristine region (Andersen, 2013: 413). Although Charmin claims not to participate in deforestation, the narrow definition of the term can hide the clear cutting practices that Charmin takes part in (Skene & Vinyard 2019). Moreover, Charmin’s Go Beyond initiative claims to regrow a tree for every tree that is used, however clearcutting can cause permanent damage to forests and boreal trees can take decades to grow (Skene & Vinyard, 2019).In addition, virgin fibre toilet paper affects the climate by producing three times as much carbon emissions than recycled content; there is also a bleaching process involved with making virgin fibre toilet paper that contributes to pollution in the air and waterways (Skene & Vinyard, 2019).

All of these hidden factors within Charmin’s operations highlight the greenwashing strategies that are being used by the Protector & Gamble Company in Charmin’s Go Beyond project. The company’s greenwashing tactics have the power to make consumers feel like they are making a positive contribution in helping the environment by buying toilet paper from a sustainable brand, which covers the negative reality of essentially flushing trees down the drain (Rahman et al., 2015: 1057). This demonstrates the way that greenwashing can delay meaningful sustainability movements for the sake of corporate profit, rather than global conservation, which highlights the need for consumers to be informed on the manipulation of greenwashing within consumer culture (Parguel et al., 2015: 111).

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H&M Greenwashing: “By choosing Conscious products, you help us make the fashion industry more sustainable!”

           H&M is a company that demonstrates a considerable amount of greenwashing in its marketing. H&M promotes itself as a clothing store that is sustainable given their “Conscious” clothes. “Conscious” is a vague term considering that the company gives a very limited explanation as to why their clothes are sustainable. Using such vague “green” terms exemplifies corporate deceit, as it leads consumers to believe that they are being proactive in helping the environment by buying “Conscious” clothes (Rahman et al., 2015: 1057). This, however, is the way that greenwashing works: misleading consumers to believe they are creating a positive change in the environment, while simultaneously concealing ecological consequences and inflating the pockets of company shareholders (Andersen, 2013: 407; Lee et al., 2018: 1089).

           H&M exhibits greenwashing in the vocabulary it uses to promote its clothing, as well as its use of “green” imagery. In the “Sustainability” section of the website, there are pictures of models in their clothing with plants surrounding them. In addition, natural colours such as green and brown are widely used in these pictures. The use of plants and natural colours evokes a sense of nature in their advertising to project an ecological outlook on H&M’s brand of clothing, while covering other environmental concerns (Parguel et al., 2015: 107; Andersen, 2013: 404). Moreover, looking at the “Conscious” clothing line, the company claims that these clothes are more sustainable than others given the materials that they are made of. There is not much explanation as to why these products are sustainable other than the fact that 50% of the material used for the clothing is made from recycled polyester or organic cotton (H&M, 2020). This reflects the impression of beneficial “green” motives to consumers; but the company fails to disclose negative environmental factors such as the high levels of carbon dioxide that are emitted from manufacturing their clothing, and the excessive amount of water it takes to grow enough organic cotton to produce only a couple pieces of clothes (Whiting, 2019).

Adding on, when browsing the “Conscious” clothing on the H&M website, I came across a dress with a pink floral pattern that was labelled “Conscious” because it was made of partly recycled polyester material. What is interesting, however, is the fact that I came across a blouse with the exact same design as the dress with no indication of it being a “Conscious” item. This blouse was made from polyester too, but it did not specify being made of recycled material even though it was the same design and material as the “Conscious” dress. Considering this, there are holes in the greenwashing tactics that H&M aims to use, which raises concerns over the ethical values of H&M’s marketing scheme as being unfair and misleading (Ekstrand & Nilsson, 2011: 167). The inconsistency between these two H&M clothing items evidently shows that greenwashing has the power to take advantage of consumers (Jones, 2019: 731).

           The lack of elaboration that H&M gives in its Sustainability initiative misleads consumers into ignorant self-actualization (Jones, 2019: 729). This is problematic considering that the ignorance of human activity has already contributed to the increased rates of climate change that we are presently experiencing. Greenwashing tactics that companies like H&M are using are slowing down the productivity towards properly addressing climate change (Andersen, 2013: 416). This demonstrates the ways in which the climate change culture is being manipulated by a consumer culture that is driven by corporate greed. This sheds light on Milton Friedman’s (1970) controversial claim that the only social responsibility of a business is to maximize its profits, as H&M’s greenwashing misleads consumers into increasing company profits at the expense of the environment (Rahman et al., 2015: 1058).

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Paper Straws & Corporate Social Responsibility

           The fact that fast food companies have paper straws, but plastic lids is very bothersome. In the past couple of years, the use of paper straws at fast food restaurants has surged. McDonald’s has engaged in what may look like a “green” way of eating, however its attempt to be “green” seems redundant based on their continuous use of plastic lids (Slater, 2019).  This highlights the ways in which fast-food corporations such as McDonald’s can greenwash consumers into believing that their company is doing its part in reducing its ecological impact, when really it is neglecting the issue at hand (Lee et al., 2018: 1088).

           When buying drinks from McDonald’s, the onus is on the consumer to dispose of their drink properly, therefore shifting the responsibility from the corporation to the individual, which speaks to the individualism aspect of neoliberalism (Coulter, 2020). This exemplifies the way that companies transfer Corporate Social Responsibility to individual responsibility which can lead to a lack of accountability for their greenwashing (Lee et al., 2018: 1089). As such, corporations make the smallest effort to help the environment, when in reality they are making the problem worse and overlooking the social responsibility that all sectors have (IPCC, 2014). Moreover, the use of paper straws at McDonald’s has backfired as consumers have complained about being unable to drink their beverages properly. As such, many consumers are requesting plastic coffee lids to drink from instead of paper straws (Slater, 2019). This essentially prolongs a cycle of consumption in a climate change culture, unfortunately accompanied by no meaningful change (Coulter, 2019: 114). Large-end corporations like McDonald’s can have massive influences on the public through their marketing and promoting, which is why given the platform they have, they need to do better.

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We Need to Do Better!

All in all, greenwashing is a deceitful, misleading practice of advertising that must be addressed and regulated in order to work towards addressing climate change in a proactive way. Climate change culture can have a direct correlation on consumer culture, which is why corporations need to stop engaging in greenwashing as an unethical marketing strategy. Greenwashing has the power to take advantage of consumers – engaging them in meaningless ignorance that allows them to delay the climate change problem – rather than working to fix it (Jones, 2019: 731; Lee et al., 2018: 1088). Consumers must be mindful of greenwashing tactics such as “green” vocabulary and imagery that is used when products and services are being advertised (Andersen, 2013: 404).

Greenwashing in a climate change culture may allow consumers to fall into a never-ending cycle of consumption (Coulter, 2019: 114). Green advertising is meaningless when it is encompassed by greenwashing. If consumers can recognize the negative impacts of greenwashing, they can make ethical decisions for themselves as well as future generations (Ekstrand & Nilsson, 2011: 169). This would provide the opportunity to inhibit environmental degradation and work towards global sustainability.

Corporate Social Responsibility needs to be enforced internationally to stop greenwashing, and corporations must acknowledge the environmental and social responsibility of all sectors (Rahman et al., 2015: 1058). In this sense, consumer culture will have the ability to empower climate change culture, rather than bringing it down. It is necessary to listen to the powerful words of Greta Thunberg, and work towards a sustainable planet for future generations.  By addressing and regulating the power of greenwashing in advertising, corporations and consumers can enable the goal of achieving global sustainability.