Naturally Interesting

The Clorox Company: chemical company. One of the dangerous dozen(a group that sickens and kill thousands of Californians each year, costing the state $2.6 billion in medical expenses and lost wages), 4 superfund sites, toxic waste
dumps in 7 states, and just recently fined $95,000 for violating U.S. pesticide laws. For an alternate view on Clorox see Joel Makower’s post. On balance – there are a lot worse out there, but there are a lot better too.

The Sierra Club: environmental organization Big greenwashing corporation. Allows Clorox to use their name and logo to market a new line of chlorine-free cleaning products called “Green Works.”

The Payoff: Clorox is paying the Sierra Club an undisclosed fee, based partly on product sales. The Sierra Club refuses to disclose the fee amount or any other efforts at transparency. Johanna O’Kelley, the Club’s director of Licensing & Cause-Related Marketing, will say only that the amount of money involved is “substantial.”

The Spin: We’re helping people choose an environmentally friendly product.

Here’s some Food for Thought:

• Are the Green Works products really environmentally friendly?
  • Two of the ingredients in the new Clorox-Sierra Club line are corn ethanol and coconut oil.  Hurray! Bad environmental policy and rainforest destruction. Not horrible overall, but there are better options.
• Even if the Green Works products were eco-friendly does that make up for the other harmful products Clorox produces?
  • Clorox is a major polluter, a consistent violator of environmental laws and produces products that harm people and the environment. This is a no-brainer win-win for them. They get to sell the Sierra Club branded green products as well as their regular chlorine products.
• Why not endorse a truly green company (there are lots to choose from)?
  • Because they aren’t paying you to. Clorox is.
• Doesn’t hiding the ball (the money) suggest that whole deal is shady?
  • The deal is shady. The idea behind environmental organizations is transparency and exposing the dark cloud that surrounds corporations that are harming the environment. The Sierra Club by acting in this manner is itself becoming a front for large corporations.

The environmental movement has matured. While there are still many small, grassroots organizations out there,  the big players have been around for a couple decades now and have grown up to be just like the giant, polluting corporations they were born to oppose. Big Green, made up of such groups as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, WWF, Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, etc…, today receive 70% of all green funding. But they have become so interested in being mainstream acceptable that they have lost the right to claim the title “environmentalists.”

The Bottomline: The Sierra Club and other members of Big Green sold out a long time ago. They have grown large in size, institutional in nature, bureaucratic in process, and conservative in ideology.  Today they lack transparency and are more concerned with maintaining their branding and profit-ability then achieving meaningful results. They beat the environmentalism drum, but are quick to kowtow to business and government interests. If you want to achieve something for the environment today volunteer your time and money to a small, local or regional group. They will fight harder to achieve the results you want with much greater efficiency (90 cents for every dollar, versus 20-30 cents for every dollar at Big Green).

Further Reading:

Big Green at Sourcewatch

The Withering of the American Environmental Movement

A comment at Grist I liked:

The [Sierra] club’s statement that industry needs to play a role is disingenuous. If industry seriously wants a role, they can play it without bribing the enviros. This is greenwashing and it is a disgrace that Sierra Club is part of this charade. Like all the other big enviros, the managerial elites are taking over as a way of showing potential donors (corporate), funders and the media that they are “reasonable people” who aren’t starting a revolution and who can be trusted to not rock the boat

And one more:

If Dow, Monsanto, and Cargill set up tiny “eco-friendly” divisions to capitalize on the emerging “green” market, will the Sierra Club logo appear on those labels?

If Smithfield Foods puts a  free range hog farm next to one of their unspeakable CAFOs in North Carolina, will the Sierra Club “partner” with Smithfield and receive royalties in exchange for their logo appearing on Smithfield’s shrink wrapped pork chops?

Update: Big Green, Another View