A Family Company

S.C. Johnson's new Greenlist products may be misleading consumers into thinking that their products have been tested by a neutral third party for their "green-ness" when in fact, they haven't.

Within the past year, green banners that sport the title "Greenlist" have sprouted up across the cleaning products of S.C. Johnson, the most popular being Windex and Shout. According to Christopher Beard, the company's public affairs director, the label has enabled the company to eliminate almost 48 million pounds of volatile organic compounds from their products in the last five years (greenbaypressgazette.com).

While this proves to be a true statement, S.C. Johnson has gone around informing it's consumers of their attempts to be green in illegal and deceitful ways. Greenlist is a "rating system used to evaluate and reduce adverse environmental effects of chemical ingredients" (mycleaningproducts.com). What S.C. Johnson doesn't tell the consumers is that this "rating system" is a patent owned by none other than S.C. Johnson. 158. While S.C. Johnson denies that their labeling is misleading, the complaints brought against the company bring up the fact that the only place that the Greenlist insignia is located on their products is on the back of opaque bottles and on the inside of clear bottles (mycleaningproducts.com). Even the insignia doesn't explain that the Greenlist "rating system" is owned by S.C. Johnson; it misleads the consumer into thinking that a neutral third party has tested the products and decided that they were environmentally friendly, which is not the case. 


Even with all of these complaints against their company, S.C. Johnson remains confident in their ability to win these lawsuits. However, they are starting to reword their disclosures on the Greenlist system. Before, their disclosure said, "Greenlist is a rating system that promotes the use of environmentally responsible ingredients" and now it says, "Greenlist: Our patented process to select raw materials with reduced environmental impact while maintaining high performance"(mycleaningproducts.com). I believe that S.C. Johnson has respectable ideas on going green, they just need to be more open about them.




Resources: http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110210/GPG03/102100594/1247/S.C.-Johnson-s--Greenlist--labeling-deceptive--lawsuit-claims
http://www.mycleaningproducts.com/articles/change-of-s-c-johnsons-labeling.html

Wal-Mart

Walmart has three easy and simple goals when it comes to the environment: to be supplied by 100 percent renewable enegry, to create zero waste, and to sell products that sustain people and the environment (walmartstores.com). 


In 2005, Walmart began working towards a goal of being supplied by 100 percent renewable energy by 2012. Well, 2012 is only just around the corner, and all Walmart has to say for themselves is that they "have installed a significant number of micro wind turbines at our Sam's Club in Palmdale, California, and store in Worchester, 
Mass., we are using solar energy in California and Hawaii and purchasing wind energy in Texas and Mexico" (walmartstores.com). For a multi-billion dollar corporation, that seems like more than enough time to remove all of their dependencies on non-renewable energy. If they were dedicated enough to improving the environment, they would have. 


Though Walmart has taken some crucial steps towards reducing their waste, they have not even come close to achieving their goal of creating zero waste. As of now, they have " worked with one of [their] toy suppliers to help them reduce packaging on 16 items. As a result, [they] were able to use 230 fewer shipping containers to distribute their products, saving about 356 barrels of oil and 1,300 trees. By broadening this initiative to 255 items, [they] expect to save 1,000 barrels of oil, 3,800 trees and millions of dollars in transportation costs"(walmartstores.com). Though this seems impressive, it's not! Walmart is one of the biggest and most influential corporations in America. If they were really concerned with the waste that they were creating, they would pull some strings and get more than 16 of their toy suppliers to help them reduce packaging. 


As strong and popular a corporation as Walmart is, I feel that they could definitely take some longer strides in the race to making our environment a cleaner and safer place. 




References:  http://walmartstores.com/Sustainability/9191.aspx