At the risk of never getting any work from these clients, I'm distributing a press release about the worst cases of greenwashing. Ask yourself, how far would you go in your marketing career to promote these companies, would it be possible to promote change from the inside, or just not worth it?

The Green Life today released “Don’t Be Fooled: America’s Ten Worst Greenwashers,” a report designed to help values-based consumers, socially responsible investors and government officials make decisions based on accurate environmental information.

“Don’t Be Fooled” documents the scope, content and impact of the nation’s most egregious cases of greenwash in marketing and public relations. Six companies, three trade associations and one government agency were selected for the report based on comparisons of their environmental rhetoric to the reality of their environmental performance.

“These greenwashers account for a major share of a mounting obstacle to sustainability,” said Geoffrey Johnson, Program Coordinator of The Green Life. “Greenwash has grown along with the environmental awareness it aims to exploit. More Americans than ever are trying to make environmentally responsible choices, but by blurring the boundaries between helpful and damaging products and companies, greenwash makes our choices difficult.”

Ford Motor Company tops the report’s list for its current advertising campaign illustrating “The Greening of the Blue Oval.” The campaign highlights the Escape Hybrid and the eco-friendly River Rouge factory as symbols of Ford’s overall environmental commitment, though hybrids represent just one-half of one percent of Ford’s annual sales, or roughly one-quarter the number of F-150s with worst-in-class fuel economy that are made each month beneath River Rouge’s vegetation-covered roof.

America ’s second-worst greenwasher is BP. The company’s print and television ads exaggerate its advancement “beyond petroleum.” In 2003, BP’s fossil-fuel products emitted 1,298 million tons of carbon dioxide, while its solar panels sold that same year will save just 0.5 million tons over their lifetime.

Third place goes to the United States Forest Service, which paid a public relations firm $113,000 of taxpayer funds to develop “Forests With A Future,” promoting revisions to the Sierra Nevada Framework that will raise annual timber removal along California ’s eastern edge from 111 million board feet to 330 million board feet.

Rounding out the rankings are, in order, General Motors, ChevronTexaco, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, TruGreen ChemLawn, Xcel Energy and the National Ski Areas Association.

Seven of the report’s greenwashers belong to either the auto or energy industries. “As global warming assumes greater importance in the market and the policy arena, we’re witnessing a rise in the frequency of misleading advertisements from greenhouse-gas emitters touting their commitment to clean technologies,” said Johnson. The ads appear regularly in opinion-leading publications including TIME, National Geographic, The Economist, Roll Call and the Washington Post.

In addition to detailed comparisons of rhetoric to reality, “Don’t Be Fooled” features reproductions of ads produced by greenwashers, an introduction to greenwash and a list of print and online resources offering further information about the greenwash.

“Don’t Be Fooled” is a project of The Green Life’s Greenwash Campaign, the nation’s only campaign to explain, expose and eliminate greenwash in marketing and public relations. Free copies of the report are available at www.thegreenlife.org.

The Green Life is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization helping the growing number of environmentally aware, health conscious Americans make informed lifestyle decisions. Through education, outreach and advocacy, The Green Life supports a demand-driven movement toward sustainable consumption, while guarding against supply-side greenwash.