We are soft sells with dreams in our eyes and money in our pockets. Small wonder that green products, halfway genuine or frankly fake, are filling up the supermarket shelves. In fact, those with a green image may be little better than the non-green products beside them. But don t be fooled. The owners real agenda is to boost the profits they get from customers, green and ungreen.
Freedom of choice is a feeble rejoinder when the issue is global suicide.
Buying green involves tackling this duplicity. Customers need to know whether the company as a whole has an ethical policy - from parent company down to subsidiaries. Heinz was recently caught like this. It had apparently been made aware of plans to alert green consumers to the slaughter of dolphins by Starkis - one of its subsidiaries. The withdrawal showed how scared companies are of the negative publicity they might receive if they do not clean up their acts right down the line.