Greenwash, noun, dictionary definition: “an attempt to make people believe that your company is doing more to protect the environment than it really is”

By the definition of the word we could accuse almost any company of this practice but, in the appliance industry it is sadly rife, at least in our view and we’re sure many will agree.

Energy Use

A huge amount of focus is placed on the energy that appliances use but, the reality is that they don’t really use all that much, they’re mostly pretty efficient at what they do and any gains you get between them in the main are marginal at best.

But it’s easy for consumers to understand: slap a rating on it that makes your product look the best or better than more, and you have a winner.

Collectively of course, when you talk about millions of households across hundreds of countries, then of course, any savings that you make will be substantial but, only when all the products in every home achieve those savings. In reality, that is unlikely to happen.

On top of that, you have to take into account f individuals’ use of the products as well, the presumption being that to achieve these savings, users are doing everything correctly. We can tell you, they ain’t!

So at least for us, the whole energy use thing is a bit of a red herring and it’s not where the largest strides can be made on environmental savings. And a lot of it, for us, is disingenuous at best.

Lifespans

This a topic that most makers or retailers do not want to have. That’s understandable as it is liable to be a very uncomfortable discussion for most these days.

You see, back in the day as an example, a bog standard washing machine was expected to last 10-15 years or more.

These days, if you get to 8 years old you’re doing well.

You might not think that’s a huge difference but when you consider there’s 2.6 million machines scrapped a year in the UK alone, not the rest of Europe or the world, *JUST* the UK that is an astonishing amount of waste being dealt with.

And, it’s an astounding amount of raw materials being used to feed the beast of new sales.

An easy win, make appliances better and last longer and you save, literally, millions and millions of tonnes in waste, raw materials, energy, water and more on making machines that shouldn’t have to be replaced.

But manufacturers and retailers aren’t really interested in that, we’re sure you can see why.

Servicing

A dying art.

Just ask anyone who’s tried to get something fixed, you rarely hear great stories these days about fast and efficient service carried out with care and skill.

Sure, you will get some, but it’s more common to hear about people having to wait for a repair, delays on parts and multiple service visits.

Understanding why that is, its key here.

Machines are mass produced to a low price and the vast bulk of machines out there now are more or less cheap throwaway products that aren’t worth repairing, it’s just not worth the time or trouble. Some are not even worth the cost of the parts to fix them.

So there are fewer repairers. And due to the spread of products and variation in them, even less that are skilled in certain areas.

That makes repairs less viable financially (both as a business and for consumers), harder to get and therefore people will often just not bother, scrap the machine and buy another. It’s faster, less hassle and sometimes even cheaper or at least they think so.

So cheap machines of questionable quality pumped out en masse are not good for repairers as well as consumers.

But you have to ask, how can all these cheap throwaway machines be good for the environment? The simple answer to that question and, there is really only one, is that they are not.

Spare Parts

Where do we even begin?!

Expensive parts, sealed or complete assemblies only, availability issues, no parts at all… take your pick!

There’s a slew of problems with parts that we’ll spare you the details on here, there are plenty of other articles on the site about this but the bottom line is that the harder spares are to get, the more expensive that they are and the more hassle they are, the less people will repair things. Be that using a professional or doing it themselves.

Sealed, complete units to save a few pennies and make things cheaper is a major issue.

And sure, there’s new right to repair laws but they’re weak and we suspect will prove to be ineffective other than maybe and, it really is a maybe, making some brands pay lip service to the notion.

They’re not really getting it at all.

Some of them probably just won’t care.

All the problems with parts makes the notion of repairs a joke. If you can’t get the parts or they’re too expensive, people won’t repair things. End of story.

While we do our best to help people with this, there’s only so much we can actually do.

But all this stuff on parts feeds into the repair industry as well; if repairers can’t get parts or repair things economically, then those machines that break, well, they’re heading to landfill.

Recycling Materials

It’s a standing joke, used as an example that a very famous brand introduced plastic tanks to their washing machines in the 1990’s hailing how wondrous it was and it was recyclable multiple times so would save some polar bears or something.

Just one small snag with that.

There was no route to recycle that material. They never had one, never came up with one so guess what happened… correct, all went to landfill or the local tips.

The point being that it’s all very well claiming that you are using recyclable materials but how are they recycled? If there’s no route to do that they just go into the normal waste stream and for sure that’s gotten better over time but the losses and energy expended recycling also has to be taken account of and we strongly suspect it isn’t.

Especially when we’re burner through a million or more washing machines a year in the UK alone we really ought not to be.

Our point is, again, it’s all well and good going on about how much your product can be recycled or is using recycled materials, but that doesn’t negate using more than you should be nor all the problems created by the need to recycle them.

Scratching The Surface

We really are only scratching the surface here on some of the things we see that makes us think that many a manufacturer and brand owner is having a laugh by trying to claim that they’re “green” when their actions would indicate the opposite.

If you look, you can find fault with most, if not all, in one or more of these broad-brush areas without even really trying too hard.

In the interest of not writing a short novel on the topic, we’re keeping this as brief as possible.

What’s Needed?

Robust legislation on the Right To Repair front for starters. And we mean tough as it’s only by being tough and closing loopholes that makers will change because, to a degree quite rightly, they will try to find the cheapest way to do things, not the best or right way.

Enforcement of that legislation.

Fines for breaches that hurt, not just token gestures. So if say a brand breaches they get fined something like £100 per machine that breaches meaning if they sold ten thousand machines, that’s gonna smart some, making it more economical just to comply.

Of course, it’s not just our industry, others are just as affected as we are by a lot of this nonsense and blatant greenwashing, governments could rake in a lot of cash if they did this correctly.

Morally, it is in our view correct to stamp out harmful environmental practices, but we think it’s also a viable revenue-raising scheme for governments as well. Meaning so far as we can see, there’s no real downside to changing how a lot of this stuff works.

And it’d stop consumers from being duped into thinking that they’re buying into some environmentally friendly things that they are not.

Hopefully this article will also help people to see and understand that what they’re being told, what they think they’re buying quite probably isn’t what they think it to be in “environmentally friendly” terms.