Porn and trees—two words I would not normally associate with one another.
But, by golly, with the magical power of the Internet, anything and everything is possible.
I’m sure you’re thinking, right, “This guy has officially gone off the deep end.” Maybe I have, but while I was bopping through Buzzfeed the other day, I found one of the strangest “environmentally friendly” initiatives out there.
On Arbor Day (April 25) and the week surrounding it, Pornhub, the world’s largest pornography website, started a new “campaign” to fight deforestation. For every 100 views the website received during the week, it pledged to plant a tree. By the end of the week, its “Give America Wood” campaign had a total of 13,471 pledged trees to plant.
So far, the website does not have a partnering environmental organization to help it carry out its goal, and my guess is it won’t get one. I can’t imagine any reputable organizations that would be willing to take the scrutiny of being associated with a porn website, regardless of how many trees the company pledges.
So what’s the big deal? The problem here is the most recent attempt at “greenwashing.” Greenwashing is when companies push to appear environmentally friendly when they really are not.
Right now, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has no regulations on what it means to be “green.”
A great example of this is Clorox, the household cleaning product industry. Clorox uses branding with green labels and pictures of forests to push the idea that its products are friendly to the environment. The company claims that its Clorox wipes are biodegradable, and maybe they are, but that leads consumers to forget that the chemicals in the wipes are the real problem.
We love to see the Dawn dish soap commercials in which the little ducklings get cleaned up after a crude oil spill. And yes, when the Exxon Valdez spill happened in Alaska, workers saved countless wildlife by cleaning them with the dish soap.
But when you go to the store and buy the soap that is conveniently colored green and has a label with cute animals on it, we again forget that the bottle it comes in will most likely end up in a landfill where it will sit for a thousand years.
Other industries are no better. Our old friend Wal-Mart has been trying to change its image to appear more sustainable by claiming a goal of only using renewable energy. This goal comes with the Wal-Mart logo alongside a green Earth sprouting leaves.
In reality, only two percent of Wal-Mart’s electricity is derived from renewable sources. Based on Wal-Mart’s current pace, it would take the company 300 years to reach its sustainability goals.
The point with all of this is that it is really easy for companies to proclaim themselves as green, without putting any real effort into it. It is free and easy publicity, and the public takes these companies at their word without thinking twice.
Realistically, Pornhub doesn’t really care about the environment. It cares about escaping the stigma the public has about pornography.
Environmental sustainability can’t be something we seek for monetary gain or self image. The purpose of it is to make things better for all of humanity, not for some extra “green” in our wallets.
Alex Goering can be reached at goer8777@stthomas.edu.