Today's new word--greenwashing

Although I've talked about this a lot (I receive all my husband's e-newsletters in architecture, materials, and construction methods), I didn't have a term.

"Greenwashing," a pejorative term derived from the term "whitewashing," was coined by environmental activists to describe efforts by corporations to portray themselves as environmentally responsible in order to mask environmental wrongdoings. The term "greenwashing" was originally confined to describing misleading instances of environmental advertising, but as corporations' efforts to portray themselves as environmentally virtuous have diversified and proliferated, so have charges of greenwashing. The term is now used to refer to a wider range or corporate activities, including, but not limited to, certain instances of environmental reporting, event sponsorship, the distribution of educational materials, and the creation of "front groups." However, regardless of the strategy employed, the main objective of greenwashing is to give consumers and policy makers the impression that the company is taking the necessary steps to manage its ecological footprint. Business Ethics

It is ubiquitous. And the public is very gullible. I'd throw "green jobs" into that mix, too. That's just a grab for government dollars. Greenwashing made the cover of TIME, but I don't read it unless I'm desperate and a copy has been abandoned somewhere, so I missed this very useful word.