Has greenwashing hit a new low? HGTV has completely missed the point of what it means to be sustainable with their new Green Home Giveaway sweepstakes.
The winner gets a fancy “green” home in Hiton Head, SC complete with energy efficient appliances, eco-floors, amenities, doo-dads, etc.; a membership to the local water-sucking, pesticide-spewing golf course; and a hybrid SUV. Of course all of these prizes are carefully branded and marketed through the HGTV programming.
Sure it’s great that taking care of the planet has become mainstream and people are becoming semi-conscious of their resource consumption. But pushing new products on consumers, whether they’re greener alternatives or not, isn’t going to have a positive impact. Consumption, the ultimate American value, just isn’t the answer.
Of course it’s the SUV that we’re going to take particular exception to. The 2008 GMC Yukon SUV hybrid up for grabs offers a remarkable 50% city fuel efficiency improvement over the standard model. My math’s a little fuzzy… what is 150% of zero anyhow?
To be more precise, the rolling monstrosity gets about 21mpg as over-rated by the EPA. Better than the 14-ish mpg that the all-gas predecessor guzzles? Sure, but calling this thing “green” is like calling a jump from the 20th story of a building, rather than the 30th, safe.
Via ecorazzi.
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