OUR MISSION

Greenwashing, also called “green sheen”, is a form of marketing spin in which green PR and green marketing are deceptively used to persuade the public that an organization’s products, aims and policies are environmentally friendly and therefore ‘better’; appeal to nature.

We created an outdoor exhibition area called the Greenwashing Lounge. The goal is to expose the deceitful and dishonest marketing tactics implemented by businesses trying to convince us that their products are sustainable and their practices are ethical. The Greenwashing Lounge experience will transform an even more conscious shopper.

Shifting the customer’s focus from a company’s appalling behaviors to something that’s peripheral.

Sustainability promises aside, only about 31% of plastic bottles end up getting recycled, which means that “the face of positive change” creates millions of tons of garbage every year, much of which ends up in landfills or the ocean.

And the water that goes in the bottles is often equally unsustainable. Nestle’s Arrowhead water claims that “Mother Nature is our muse” and boasts that it “has a team of experts dedicated to watching over each one of our 13 spring sources” to ensure responsible water stewardship. This sounds promising until one considers that those springs are in California, which has been in a state of drought for five years. The company also bottles water in Arizona and Oregon, both of which are also experiencing droughts.

The environment and economy are paying the price for fast fashion — but there’s hope.

More than 60 percent of fabric fibers are now synthetics, derived from fossil fuels, so when our clothing ends up in a landfill (about 85 percent of textile waste in the United States goes to landfills or is incinerated), it will not decay.

But don’t worry, solutions are available. For shifts to happen, it has to be really strong-minded changemakers poking people with a stick, it has to be economically viable, or it has to be put down in law. But it’s on the brands. And the poking can come from consumers; it can be something as simple as a boycott — “We’re not going to buy this stuff anymore, this stuff is terrible, change it up.” Look how quickly we got rid of plastic straws. It shows that consumers can push brand new companies and businesses to change very fast if we put our minds to it.

Does your brand help people change the world for the better?

Over the past years the need for ‘sustainable lifestyles’ has become an imperative. Brands have a huge potential to unleash a positive impact. Brands influence our behaviors, our aspirations, our insecurities and even our definition of success and happiness. That creative power is potent.

“I am telling you there is hope. I have seen it. But it does not come from governments or corporations. It comes from the people.” ~ Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg “has succeeded in creating a global attitudinal shift, transforming millions of vague, middle-of-the-night anxieties into a worldwide movement calling for urgent change,” the editors of Time wrote in December, when they named her the magazine’s 2019 person of the year.

“Greta has not accepted what is happening in the world and neither are we,” says Founders Yoli and Beth. “If we can provide an educational platform while also supporting sustainable brands and offering a truly unique experience, we’re going to do everything we can to keep these events going year in and year out.”