Understand better the issues behind this marketing manipulation

Hello planet lovers, 2020 already! A new decade is beginning and with it we hope its good resolutions so that the years to come will be a little less black than the previous years and especially greener. Because yes, it is no longer a secret for anyone, global warming is here, (not a single snowflake since this winter in our capital), animal species are gradually becoming extinct, gigantic fires burn everything in their path, rain floods entire parts of countries.

In recent years (and decades for the precursors), some brand names have understood the environmental issues and have found how to ride the wave to attract more consumers by giving them false ethical or environmental reasons to choose them over another brand. This is called GREENWASHING.

A distortion of reality tinged with green

So today we are assailed by advertising, communication content, visuals from some large and even small companies that abusively manipulate reality to their advantage.

All of them claim, insidiously or directly:

• to be organic by creating their own labels (but without being able to prove it)
• to reduce the carbon footprint (without being able to prove it by selling the so-called “local”),
• to recycle (without having the exact origin of the raw materials, recycling traceability, or how it is done afterwards, or by creating additional and unnecessary transport to distant sorting centres)
• to be ethical by highlighting the “local” for part of the production (by being very opaque on the other parts and origins of processing)
• to make donations to NGOs that fight global warming and communicate this abundantly in order to give themselves a clear conscience while continuing to pollute.

And to make it sound more real, they use unofficial terms like “clean” “green” “nature-friendly” “eco-label” “local”, or choose to use nature images or natural tones to give this impression of ecology .

And there’s more! We’ve noticed an overflowing creativity in this category.

Technically speaking, greenwashing is what?

Wikipedia gives us a great definition that we can only share, of course.

« Greenwashing, also known as eco-washing or greening, is a marketing or public relations process used by an organisation (company, national or territorial public administration, etc.) in order to give itself a misleading image of ecological responsibility. Most of the time, the expenditure is more on advertising than on real actions in favour of the environment and sustainable development. »

Greenwashing is the act of conveying information to the public that is – in substance and form – a distorted presentation of facts and truth, with the aim of appearing socially and/or environmentally responsible in the eyes of a target audience. It is a vast and complex communication system designed to pass off “bad” data or information as “good”.

Greenwashing is not always easy to identify

As with any manipulation, greenwashing is sometimes difficult to identify. Indeed, if the brand, the company in front of you, manages to tell you enough without saying too much, and to give you confidence, with a few well-placed terms, then, yes you will most likely be deceived.
The worst thing is that in many cases the employees of companies that greenwash are themselves convinced that their company is doing good. Incredible, isn’t it?

How do you know if you’ve been greenwashed?

The only way to avoid this manipulation is to ask the right questions before buying and to make sure that the ecological and/or human arguments put forward are true.
The kind of question being: can you tell me where your raw material comes from and how it is grown/extracted? Is it possible to see your organic certificate, do you have a certification label recognized by an external and neutral organization? When was your last audit? Are you a certified brand or only your suppliers are certified? What is your waste policy?
Or to know the labels of certifications you will find some on these sites in french:
INFOLABEL.BE
AGENCE WALLONNE POUR LA PROMOTION D’UNE AGRICULTURE DE QUALITÉ

What is true sustainable development?

It means taking ecology, society and economy and making them all work together on an equal footing for a sustainable future. Proclaiming organic without taking into account the economic and human aspects makes no sense. Taking the human and local aspect into account without making organic is not sustainable either.

True sustainable development is a holistic approach. It is being able to prove everything we say and do in an honest and transparent way.
Of course it’s easy for us to say because even if perfection doesn’t exist, we can “claim” to communicate in a 100% honest and transparent way and we can justify each of the arguments that make Kalani a brand that suits us.

We are not surfing on a marketing wave. Before creating the brand, we already had these values and we were already working towards them. Moreover, it was inconceivable for us to create a new company in 2016 without these values in our DNA, because today we should not create anything without taking sustainable development into account. We are like that in our lives too. And every year we try to improve ourselves so that this honesty in what we say you also feel it when you sleep in your sheets every night!

Good nights and we hope that you will continue to have sweet dreams on both your ears …