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Is Big Business Ever Green?

last updated: 1 October 2007
Silverjet
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Several weeks ago The Chatsworth FOOTSIE 100 Green Washers and Green Winners survey asked 1,200 environmental tastemakers about their perception of businesses and the environment. The results? 
  • Only 1% of respondents believe genuine concern for the environment is the key driver for UK companies to adopt green policies
  • The main motivation for UK companies to adopt green policies is to protect their reputation (27%) followed by consumer pressure (20%) and good business sense (18%)
  • Marks & Spencer (45%) and HSBC voted the top green winners - the companies making the most genuine green effort
  • BP, Tesco and British Airways considered to be most guilty of 'greenwash' by respondents

The group included journalists and commentators from the UK national print and broadcast press, the environmental and business trade media, political groups and sustainability experts - so people who watch this stuff.
 
But when we went onto Marks & Spencer and HSBC's sites looking for some green photos to include in this article, we couldn't find a mere mention of the word. Could they actually be doing out of concern as opposed to PR?

At least BP has a green logo (thereby tricking us into believing they're at least trying), and what can we say about British Airways? They have a chance to make a difference by being the first major carrier to offset the emissions from their all flights, but have yet to do so. Yes, they do other things, but none seem as concrete as that would be.

Not Silverjet, who admittedly isn't a FOOTSIE 100 company, but gets our vote for being the first airline we know of automatically working to offset their emissions.

At least we GET that.

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