Green Friday is emerging as an alternative to the traditional Black Friday, with brands advocating for more environmentally conscious shopping. However, it's important to scrutinise whether this shift truly represents a move towards sustainability or if it's just another tactic to encourage spending under the guise of being 'green' or is it simply just tree washing?
The Green Facade
Many brands on Green Friday promote eco-friendly products or pledge to donate a portion of their sales to environmental causes. While these initiatives seem positive, they often still encourage the same level of consumerism as Black Friday. The core issue of overconsumption remains unaddressed, as the focus is still on buying more, albeit 'greener' products.
Arguably if you're going to buy something, buy it from a better, cleaner and greener business, but when that green starts to blur amongst the countless Green Friday ads and the distinction between Black Friday and Green Friday ads starts to blur.. it's difficult to see what's what, so perhaps it's better not to buy at all.
Tree Washing
Planting trees is great, don't get us wrong on that one. But using it as a tool or an incentive to sell more is is bit like distracting you with something shiny. We'll do this thing that you perceive as good, as long as you buy more.
Plant trees and BUY MORE this B̶l̶a̶c̶k̶ Green Friday.
Buy more, buy things you don't need, what ever you do, just buy more and we'll put a green twist on it. That's not a message we're in to.
Environmental Claims and Real Impact
The environmental benefits of these Green Friday offers can sometimes be questionable. Back to the trees again; Planting an extra tree for every purchase sounds good on the surface, but it doesn’t offset the environmental impact of producing and shipping that product.
It doesn't address making more stock for increased B̶l̶a̶c̶k̶ Green Friday sales.
Especially if you throw in there that you really didn't need to buy it, and let's be real here, these green incentives are encouraging you to buy more.
Consumer Awareness
As consumers, it's crucial to be aware of these marketing strategies. While shopping green is better than the alternative, the best option for the environment is to buy less.
Green Friday subtly manipulates our behaviours leading to buying decisions that we wouldn't normally make, engaging in over consumption, under the canopy of environmental consciousness.
There's the argument that if you're going to be spending money on Black Friday, spend it with someone thats doing good. We get that, but would it not be better to just not spend at all? We'll get in to that later.
PLANT TR££S & BUY MORE
Don't buy into mass consumerism, just because there's a green twist.
Mindful consumption, rather than simply green consumption, should be the goal.
Get involved
Feel free to use the images, drop us a DM on Instagram @admissionassistants and we'll send them to you. The more people that see Black Friday for what it is, the better.
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