Tesco Greenwash: Turn Lights into Flights!

A British supermarket seems to have failed to grasp the concept of going green. You see, Tesco has unveiled a new program that rewards shoppers for purchasing compact fluorescent light bulbs – wiTesco Greenwash: Turn Lights into Flights!th airline miles.  The ‘Every little helps’ promotion is meant to urge shoppers to cut back on energy at home, and then hop on an airplane and rack up a huge carbon footprint to make up for it.

From The Guardian, via Eden Bee

Tesco chief executive Terry Leahy is now offering air miles when you buy a low energy lightbulb. What next? Free packet of 20 Benson & Hedges with every Nicorette patch? A dozen king-size Mars bars with each box of Ryvita? Talk about counter-productive. It’s like being lost in the desert, miles from anywhere and eating your own legs to sustain yourself during your search for help.

Granted, the promotion actually allows shoppers to earn airline miles for all purchases – it’s just that some schmuck in the advertising department needed to find a word that rhymes with ‘flights’. LIGHTS! Genius!

But, as The Guardian’s Ed Gillespie points out, the real problem is that ads like this help feed into the notion that you can make a few small changes and still go about your very non-green daily routine – and call yourself ‘green’. It’s like taking a reusable bag to Wal-Mart and filling it with plastic crap from China. Not exactly helping things, is it?

Link [The Guardian] via [Eden Bee]

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