I used to be a big supporter of The Sierra Club - we gave them money every year, we received their magazines, we signed their petitions. But that all stopped not too long ago when I heard that they were endorsing Clorox’s new line of “non-toxic” cleaners…supposedly in exchange for an undisclosed amount of money. Clorox has a long history of making incredibly toxic chemicals, damaging the environment, and continuing to test their products on animals while the rest of the world moves away from the practice. This is what The Sierra Club has come to stand for and endorse? Seems I am not the only one fed up with this blatant hypocrisy by a supposedly “green” organization. From PR Watch:

In an unprecedented move by one of the Big Green environmental groups, the “Sierra Club’s national board voted March 25 to remove the leaders of the Club’s 35,000-member Florida chapter, and to suspend the Chapter for four years.” What did the chapter do? According to Peter Montague, it was “highly critical of the national board’s decision in mid-December 2007 to allow The Clorox Company to use the Sierra’s Club’s name and logo to market a new line of non-chlorinated cleaning products called ‘Green Works.’ In return, Clorox Company will pay Sierra Club an undisclosed fee, based partly on product sales.” When grass-roots members pointed out that Clorox was fined $95,000 for violating U.S. pesticide laws just as the deal with the Club was being brokered, staffer Johanna O’Kelley dismissed Clorox’s culpability, saying their violation was “a technicality.”

There are plenty of real natural cleaners made by independent, smaller companies that A. actually care about the environment and B. do not test on animals. How about Seventh Generation, Method, Ecover, Ed Begley, etc? Oh how nice it would have been if they could have endorsed one of these companies…but that probably wouldn’t have gotten them such a big influx of cash for their coffers.

This is from a blog post I came across that I found very telling - “What we are watching is perhaps the final chapter of the conversion of the Sierra Club ‑ on a national level ‑ from an activists driven organization to a corporate driven organization where the interest of the Sierra Club as a corporation invariably trumps the interest of the Sierra Club as an activists’ organization.”

The Sierra Club obviously no longer cares about the environment - it’s all about greenwashing the consumer in exchange for corporate money, so I can no longer support any of their efforts. I know one person doesn’t make that big a difference to their bottom line, but I would love to somehow find out how many people stopped being members once this news came out. I stopped using Burt’s Bees products when Clorox bought them, so it is only right I stop supporting The Sierra Club now. How can anyone trust anything they endorse from here on out?

John Muir is rolling in his grave as I write this.

With “green” being at the forefront of every TV show, magazine cover, newspaper story - it’s going to be hard to avoid being greenwashed tomorrow on EarthDay. From machines that crush aluminum cans for you using electricity to “environmentally friendly” plastic bottles (what a joke, really - that’s an oxymoron if I have ever heard one), greenwashing is becoming overwhelmingly prevalent in our world. Companies are realizing that there is money in not only selling worthwhile green products but also “green” products that are nothing of the sort. Every day in my inbox I get press releases from companies wanting me to mention these type of products on this site - and every day I write them back “Thanks, but no thanks…I cannot in good faith tell my readers about X product, but good luck to you”. Too many green sites promote all these press releases whether they are a truly green product or not.

This year, make EarthDay truly about the earth - let’s try not to buy anything. At all. Let’s use what we already have. Let’s reuse glass sauce containers as vases. Let’s try to use more microfiber cloths and less paper towels. But mainly lets avoid buying a product that gets advertised as being green…and is not in the least bit green or environmentally friendly. EarthDay stickers not printed with soy inks and natural glues. Earth Day hats and shirts from China with made with non-organic cotton and by children in sweatshops. “Green” cleaners made by a company known for being the world’s biggest maker of toxic bleach. Let’s make tomorrow’s EarthDay the beginning of an awakening, even if it is only a first step for some of us. We will not fall for greenwashing nor will we allow ourselves to be tricked into believing everything we read from companies looking to take advantage of our concern for our planet.