Greenfuzzing?

Leading on from my posting last week, I gave some more thought to another very basic error made by many providers of eco accommodation and this time it is more about an simple error, rather than economising on facts.  Ecotourism being a growing market that it is, not surprising many accommodation providers struggling in the hard economic times it is understandable. Last time I checked, and I forgot where I read it, but the study stated that ecotourism had grown by 67% in the previous year, which is an incredible level of growth, but compared to the world travel industry as a whole, it is less than a tiny speck.  So what can ecotourism focused hotels and lodges do to make their tiny share of the world travel market just that little bit bigger. 

Over the past few years while learning more about the field of ecotourism and the wider green/eco cause I have come across the term “greenwashing” time and time again.  From bloggers trying to highlight the eagerness of some eco hotels and eco lodges to finesse or massage their eco/green offering by basically taking a half-truth and exaggerating it beyond recognition.  An example of this might be from a hotel stating on their website they have a “strict and comprehensive recycling policy” when in reality all they do is put their paper in the recycling bin.  That would be a solid example of people “greenwashing”.  The most hardcore form of "greenwashing" would obviously to just make up or copy someone else’s eco policy and put it on the hotels or lodges website. 

But I’ve been becoming more aware of late of a sort of, for the want of a better word, “greenfuzzing”.  Which can be a complicated form of “greenwashing”, but after reading the countless examples of eco policies I think it is an example of fuzzy copywriting.  When you read about an eco lodge, they’ll tell you how their committed to making the world a better place.  And it might be just me, after a little introduction to the ethos or philosophy I just want to get down to the hard facts of what they do in relation to the environment and the local community.  But that’s not always how it reads. 

Many eco lodges get too hung up on over the top description, or adding copy finesse, to make it more of a selling point than perhaps it is.  I think people in the main, and this is my personal experience, people value plain speaking.  So it you have a sewage treatment process that involves worms chewing away happily on peoples effluent just say that, concisely and clearly.  Yes detail is good, but speaking to most people, they just want to be able to scan through quickly see examples of the policy in action where possible, but really just get a good overview and then consider the other elements of the accommodation at more length.  This over complication of simple facts is what I would define as “greenfuzzing” where effectively the information is there, but you have to dig and sift through it to actually find out what you want.  I think as ecotourism grows out of its niche area, eco hotels and eco lodges will need to think about selling their offering by using terminology that is eco transparent.