There is no planet B
Hello Gaïa’s children,
Today we are going to talk about something you can
not ignore anymore simply because you see it everywhere, hear it all the time
(yes that’s how marketers are good !!) :
the….. (drum roll please)
Greenwashing
You remember when you were a child and your mamma
asked you who broke her favorite vase and how you easily told on your dog because
the poor thing had no voice to defend itself ?
Well that’s something like that.
Greenwashing is just giving an impression that
a company or its products are more environmentally sound than they really are.
And Gaïa can not say
« SHAME, SHAME , SHAME » to the company for the lies.
(Yes I am
a huge fan of GOT, who isn’t ?)
So basically they
think you can be fooled by pictures of nature, magic words as eco-friendly, ethical, organic or sustainable or event
just green.
Who loves green anyway ? It made me think of the monologue about cerulean blue in
"The Devil wears Prada" (a must-watch fashion film if you ask me !!) :
« This... 'stuff'? Oh... ok. I see,
you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select
out, oh I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're
trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about
what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not
just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're
also blindly unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a
collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't
it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up
in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through
the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic "casual
corner" where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However,
that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of
comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the
fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected
for you by the people in this room. From a pile of "stuff. »
And since a video speaks more than a thousand words, here is the link :
So in conclusion, if the fashion industry wants you to love a color, you will!!
(or at least for a season 😈)
To return to
the subject and speak in fashion terms : we are reaching the
deadline : Gaïa’s deadline.
So if we
don’t do anything quickly, it will cause irrevocable damage to our planet and
you are more aware about this now, thanks to
cheap Tshirts and tote bags (what an irony) :
There is no
planet B
So, as demand for products that are environmental-friendly grow, the green washing is just a way to capitalize :
a company or organization spends then more time and money claiming to be "green" trhough advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact.
And it works. Why?
Because you have a conscious, you care abut the planet, animals, people and their work conditions (after the Rana Plazza incident, it's more difficult to close your eyes isn't it? --> watch the documentary "The true cost" on netflix (come on, I know you have netflix, or you know someone who knows someone...we all know how it works) and you will have you eyes wide open for a long while!)
Illustration done by https://www.instagram.com/loom_officiel/
So since you are super nice people, you are easy targets for marketers!!!
Plus we all know
how life can be frustating, difficult, exhausting, and for some of you, the
best way to feel better, forget your problems and spend a good time is to go
shopping with your friends, or even by yourself (for the busy moms out there,
in desperate need of silence !)
That’s where you
have a role to play : you can not stop buying clothes (i’m focusing on
fashion but it also works with everything else for sure !) but you have
to learn how to buy less, better, greener.
Here we go again
with the green stuff, you think.
You simply need to redefine what « sparks
joy » for you (Thanks Marie Kondo for this genius sentence) and get rid
of all the rest ( by giving, recycling, upclycling, altering, and a few other
verbs in –ing but mostly not buying things you will throw away 2 months later)
and more importantly, you need to make the effort to care about how, where, in
which conditions, from which materials the clothes you buy are made.
Because if you
don’t, one day, you will wake up, only see all the uglyness in the world and you
will have ideas like : let’s go really far away, become self-sufficient
and ultimately die like in the movie "Into the Wild"
Nothing wrong with
that picture ! (except the dying part!!)
But no need to be a drama queen and feel overwhelmed (that
won’t help anyone, not even Gaïa), just take one step at a time and train
your eyes to be sharp and spot greenwashed products !
I won’t make a list
on how you can tell a product is greenwashed, or how to avoid it, but i will
leave you all the sources i checked : you can find so many (which is kind
of sad when you think about it).
You will have the pleasure to (re)discover
the most famous examples of greenwashing in the history such as Volkswagen, the gas industry with their « green oil » and of course Starbucks
(by the way , I am pretty sure they leave that cup on purpose on the last
episode of GOT
à product placement people !!!).
In the worst cases, the fashion industry =
pollution + awful work conditions + waste
So as Tyrion
Lannister once said :
"A
Wise Man Once Said That You Should Never Believe A Thing Simply Because You
Want To Believe It."
Don't make yourself believe a product is healthy or sustainable if you want to buy it, make yourself buy only garments you know are healthy and sustainable!
Search for proves 👀 .Everything is in the detais !!
(and there is a lot written on the clothing labels!!)
XOXO
Gossip girl
( or more
accurately Meili, fashion and series addict blogger)
Sources :
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