THE GREENWASHING OF THE BLUE OVAL

The Green Life's Greenwasher of the Month is Ford Motor Company, for glossing over its fleet-wide fuel efficiency problems with publicity for its 2005 Escape Hybrid, hiding gas-guzzling pickup trucks beneath the "living" roof of its new manufacturing facility, and making pledges about future environmental research that conflict with its opposition to long-term fuel efficiency targets.

Ford recently launched a new marketing campaign, "The Greening of the Blue Oval," featuring environmentally themed ads in major print publications such as National Geographic and Time, and on niche websites like the Environmental News Network. The campaign is centered around the 2005 Escape Hybrid, scheduled to reach dealerships by late summer, and the new Dearborn Truck Plant, which Ford describes as "a 21st century model of manufacturing sustainability." At the company's annual shareholder meeting on May 13th, Chairman and CEO Bill Ford Jr. added to the company's green PR blitz by pledging Ford's commitment to spend at least 50 percent of its research budget on environmentally friendly technologies.

Ford deserves credit for rolling out the first hybrid electric SUV, which gets over 35 mpg, and sure enough, Ford has been patting itself on the back: "Finally," reads one ad for the Escape Hybrid, "a vehicle that can take you to the very places you're helping to preserve." Unfortunately for those places, the Escape Hybrid is indeed just "a" vehicle among dozens of models that Ford manufactures, which collectively preserve no more than the company longstanding status as an industry laggard in fuel economy rankings. The 20,000 Escape Hybrids that Ford plans to sell annually will add only a marginal boost to the company's average fleet-wide fuel economy of 18.8 mpg. A recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that Ford has the lowest fuel economy among the nation's major auto manufacturers.

The Dearborn Truck Plant incorporates a natural storm-water management system, waste reduction processes and other technologies designed to ease the environmental burden of auto manufacturing. Ford has gone to great lengths to validate the benefits of the facility, soliciting certification from the Green Building Council and having the its 10.6 acre plant-filled roof designated the "World's Largest Living Roof" by Guinness World Records. While a Guinness record makes for a sensational story, the real story of the Dearborn Truck Plant's impact on the environment has more to do with what's inside the facility as what's on top of it. At full production, the plant will manufacture 250,000 Ford F-150 trucks each year. At 11.9 city mpg and 15.2 highway mpg, the F-150 has the lowest fuel economy in its class. The facility's "living" roof is not nearly large enough to absorb the carbon dioxide emissions created by the gas-guzzling F-150s that roll of the assembly line below.

It is too soon, and may never be possible, to judge the merit of Bill Ford's pledge to spend no less than half of the company's annual R&D budget on raising fuel economy and cutting emissions. The self-proclaimed environmentalist exec has made green promises before. In 2000, he proclaimed that within five years his company would reduce its SUV emissions by a quarter. Ford abandoned its commitment just three years later when its SUV emissions were actually on the rise. Even if Ford claims to make good on the latest pledge, there may be no way for the public to be sure. Companies are not required to and rarely do release any information about their R&D. Bill Ford framed the pledge as a signal of the company's long term environmental vision, thus contradicting the company's recommendation, given on the same day as the pledge, that shareholders vote against a shareholders' resolution that would have required Ford to meet specified emissions reductions by 2013 and 2023.

Ford's Escape Hybrid, Dearborn Truck Plant and R&D pledge are indisputable evidence that the company is taking steps to position itself at the vanguard of environmental responsibility in the auto industry. But for whom is Ford trying to prove the greening of the blue oval? Is it profiteering on the small number of consumers who seek out hybrid electric vehicles and are impressed by record-breaking roofs and wooly pledges, or is Ford, after years of rhetoric about environmental reform, taking to heart the interests of all stakeholders in its operations -- all who are and will be affected by the environmental impact of the company's historical negligence regarding greenhouse gas emissions? If the latter, then Ford's latest environmental initiatives are at best tokens of sweeping future changes to the company's entire fleet. Where there's a will, there's a way. According to Global Exchange and the Rainforest Action Network, Ford already has the technological capacity to improve its fleet-wide fuel economy to 40 mpg. The groups are leading the Jumpstart Ford campaign calling on Ford to reach 50 mpg in fuel economy by 2010 and zero tailpipe emissions by 2020.

But for the time being, Ford's tokens of environmental responsibility are no more reliable than its environmental track record. Based on Ford's ranking at the bottom of the fuel economy rankings, its absurdity of building worst-in-class pickups within a supposedly sustainable manufacturing facility, and its preference for voluntary targets over concrete benchmarks for long-term emissions reductions, it appears that the blue oval has not yet been greened, just greenwashed.

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