It's better to dress something down than to fake it up. Yet most of us are taught the opposite: When entering a new space, we try to fit in, play the part and meet the standard. This "fake it until you make it" mentality is not only harmful to ourselves but also to our physical environments, corroding the integrity of the spaces we're trying to fit into and threatening their future existence.
I'm talking about greenwashing, a term for false claims made by a company about the environmental benefits of its practices or products. Think back to the 2009 Volkswagen scandal: the company marketed its cars as "clean diesel cars," while cheating emissions tests to the Environmental Protection Agency behind the scenes.
Greenwashing is worse than a company that openly prioritizes profitability over sustainability. At least that’s honest. Giants like Exxon or JPMorgan should stop pretending to be environmental champions and admit that no consumer truly favors them because of their environmental consciousness, philanthropic goals or stringent codes of ethics. It's time for these corporate companies to stop pretending to be something they're not and start owning the fact that they will never try to be anything else.
That's not to say that to be successful, a company cannot have a genuine commitment to charity; in fact, for some companies, this is a reality. Take Newman's Own, for example, a successful nonprofit organization committed to giving all profits to children's charities. If success is measured by outreach and scale, then Newman's Own surpasses those standards while meeting its humanitarian goals. Looking at this company, I have to consider the question: why aren't more companies putting ethics and success in conversation with one another?
The answer is more nuanced than you'd think. While there may exist some gaps between ethical compliance and profitability, the bigger problem lies in the culture. Between greenwashing campaigns, the implementation of "ethical" courses in business schools, such as the newly introduced AI and Ethics course in UMass Amherst’s Isenberg and a growing social impact crusade consuming college campuses, it's becoming increasingly challenging to differentiate truth from marketing. This lack of distinction is only making "sustainable business" initiatives seem less achievable than they actually are.
Ethics and charity should be chosen, not imposed. It's vital that, rather than an institutional body requiring them to, people take the first steps themselves. At the Stanford Graduate School of Business, for example, the Sustainability Strategies Program offers students the opportunity to engage with the environmental and social impacts of business practices and learn how to mitigate effects such as pollution and resource overconsumption. Here, students aren’t just learning, they’re applying. Unlike a typical lecture hall, the program is dynamic, and encourages students to develop their own sustainable initiatives for case studies and projects. Giving students the option to choose their engagement with sustainability is a wake-up call that business programs requiring sustainability credits to graduate must hear. Even if it looks good on paper, sustainability courses shouldn't be offered to students unless there is a demand for them, or else they run the risk of being treated as accessories that only work to beautify universities.
The same argument applies to social impact clubs at Cornell that are treated as niche resume boosters rather than experiences that shape long-term initiatives and goals. In both cases, groups are wielding sustainability as a mighty marketing sword, sharpened by the idea that in doing so, companies, clubs and other institutions will seem more attractive.
The company that cried green is not just one tale of a company that lied, and the consumers who believed them; the company that cried green is a trend. It's a cyclic pattern of false marketing, and diluted hope that any ethical goals — sustainability, diversity in the workplace and other charitable initiatives — will ever be supported in the long-term. Companies, whether they truly apply these goals or not, must face the fact that if nothing changes soon, one day consumers and future employees alike will stop believing them.
Ella Pham '29 is an Opinion Columnist studying Economics in the College of Arts and Sciences. Her column Ellaments of Truth explores ethics in professional fields, attempting to give voice to underserved communities. She analyzes business, politics, and history, in an effort to make broad trends understandable truths. She can be reached at epham@cornellsun.com.
