>> The Webby Awards added a Best Green award this year! Click over to see a video montage of 5-word award acceptance speeches from Jimmy Fallon, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, and other internet luminaries.
>> Edward Norton’s aiming to win a medal this year — by running the New York Marathon with Maasai warriors to raise funds for eco-projects in Kenya.
>> Good Housekeeping’s Green Seal Award’s little more than simple greenwashing. The award, after all, goes to the magazine’s advertisers who pay for it. According to Slate’s The Big Money:
When I asked Good Housekeeping about the criteria, for example, the spokesperson responded, “the criteria will be transparent to applicants,” ignoring my question of whether consumers will be told what exactly “green” means to Good Housekeeping….
So a green seal that can only be earned by companies advertising in Good Housekeeping is, as a means of comparison, unreliable, and at worst, completely so. With pay-to-play built right in, the Green Good Housekeeping Seal can only raise more questions about products than it will answer.
Photo via Maasai Marathon
I’m not surprised that the Green Good Housekeeping Symbol is questionable at best. It sounds like only a minor variation on the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, which has long been known to be meaningless.
Comment by How Green Is My Valley — September 15, 2009 @ 12:46 pm
Yeah — I wish Good Housekeeping would just call its “seals” what it really is. In the case of the seal of approval, it’s simply a 2-year warranty. Why not call it the Good Housekeeping 2-Year Warranty?
Of course, in the case of the green seal, I’m not sure what you’d call it if you called it what it really is. Besides Good Housekeeping’s Greenwashing Seal, that is….
Comment by Siel — September 17, 2009 @ 5:41 pm