m e d i a  press releases EARTH DAY GREENWASHING AWARDS ANNOUNCED Contact Wendy Wendlandt 11965 Venice Blvd., #408, Los Angeles, CA, 90066 (310) 397-5270 , (310) 391-0053 fax

For Release:

April 14, 1999

Earth Day 2000, the consumer clearinghouse for the environmental decade, announced its "Don't Be Fooled" awards today to those corporations responsible for painting their actions as environmental when their actual actions destroy the environment. Annually, Earth Day 2000 recognizes ten greenwashing companies with the "Don't Be Fooled" Award.

"These awards are issued to the top greenwashers of 1998 for their misleading advertising," said Wendy Wendlandt, President of Earth Day 2000. "We are calling on corporations to stop greenwashing the public and to realize that people want green responsibility, not green rhetoric. These 'astroturf environmentalists' - green, fake, and rootless - need to be stopped from cashing in on consumers desire to help the planet by buying green."

Ford automobile corporation gets the #1 award. Ford advertises itself as an environmentally sensitive company through a two page advertising spread in the March 2000 Discover Magazine titled "Only One Thing Smells Better Than a New Car: Fresh Air." It is complete with photos of fish, clean air, clean water, and buttons proclaiming Pollution Stinks", "Save our Parks", and "Clean Air" statements. "Yet, the company's newest product, the Ford Excursion will produce twice the pollution of the average automobile," said Wendlandt.

This year, the awards go to:

1. Ford Corporation, for advertising "Only One thing smells better than a new car. Fresh air." while producing the first models of its new gas guzzling, air polluting SUV, the Excursion.
2. Monsanto, for once again greenwashing its herbicide Roundup while in reality the chemical is toxic, harmful to the environment.
3. Nuclear Energy Institute, for its advertisements promoting nuclear energy as the environmentally correct energy source despite the tons of nuclear waste which contaminate the environment.
4. Home Depot, for its environmental information website series which expounds on the company's green leadership while the company simultaneously leads the market for sales of old growth forest products.
5. Exxon, for promotion of its token environmental programs, The Tiger Protection Fund and the Tiger Conservation Education Fund, while their regular operations continue to wreak havoc on the environment.
6. Pacific Lumber, for its website congratulating its environmental achievements of 1928 which contrasts with its work of 1998 to cut one of the last remaining ancient forests, the Headwaters in Northern California.
7. BP Alaska, for its 1998 report touting its great 'Environmental Performance on Alaska North Slope' while it works vigorously to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
8. American Plastics Council, for its websites, which claim that plastics are good for the environment despite the contribution of plastics to our toxic waste problem.
9. Phillips Petroleum Company, for its advertisement congratulating itself for helping to create the Cactus Playa Lake Project in Cactus, Texas, while emitting more than 16,000 pounds of reproductive toxins in Borger, Texas - just 45 miles away.
10. Chevron, its 5^th straight nomination, for the company's 'People Do' advertising campaign which has aggrandized the company's environmental achievements for the past decade, during which they have paid out $71.7 million in fines for environmental fines.

The full report is available here or by calling (310) 397-5270.

Earth Day 2000 is the Consumer Clearinghouse for the Environmental Decade. The organization will be working to ensure that Earth Day 2000 does not become another opportunity for corporate greenwashing.