We’re all familiar with “greenwashing”, which is what happens when a company openly proclaims its eco-friendly attitude and then turns around and does something really eco-nasty, like poison an entire village or river.

Officially, greenwashing is defined as, “The act of misleading the public regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product, service, or business line.” 

The term is reputedly the brainchild of New York environmentalist Jay Westervelt, and first came to prominence in Westervelt’s 1986 article on how hoteliers had used the environment as a ploy to reduce towel usage among guests and thus boost hotel profits.

A prime example of greenwashing (sans towel) would be Coca-Cola’s bid, last year, to insure that Grand Canyon National Park in the U.S. continued to allow the use of disposable plastic water bottles – a move initiated by the heads of the various national parks in honor of the fact that Coke is one of the National Park Foundation’s biggest givers.

Coke, which this year put up a billboard in Manila, in cooperation with the World Wide Fund for Nature (Philippines), to promote the environment, often bills itself as highly eco-conscious. This was certainly its focus at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, when Coca-Cola built a café for visitors featuring salvaged, pine-beetle-damaged wood furniture and distributed beverages in bottles made from biodegradable, plant-based materials rather than BPA, delivered via hybrid and all-electric vehicles.

I could go on, but let’s turn the Hall of Shame spotlight on another green wannabe with a heart as black as night. I’m referring to BP, which was judged largely responsible for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Formerly known as British Petroleum, the UK-based oil and gas company changed its name (to BP) and brought out a slogan that should have made even former CEO Tony Hayward blush: Beyond Petroleum.

Hayward, who once referred to the oil spill as “pesky”, and resented having his vacation interrupted to deal with it, was less than gracefully retired from the company in July of 2010 – far too late to deal with the majority of the oil killing Gulf wildlife and sickening people.

Other examples of famous (and largely infamous) greenwashers include Monsanto, which used National Public Radio, or NPR, as a mouthpiece to insist that the world can’t feed itself with  “family” and organic farms, when the exact opposite is true according to a 2008 UN report.

Another example comes from chemical giant DuPont, which spent decades denying the health risks of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, a Teflon-like chemical related to perfluorochemicals, or PFCs (and for which the State of Minnesota is still trying to sue 3M).

On that subject, it’s probably essential to include energy company Chevron, whose “People Do” ads call into question the legitimacy of its intent, and make this writer ask: “What do people have to do to get Chevron to pay up for its environmental disaster in Ecuador?”

So how can you and I protect ourselves from these greenwashing campaigns? Ask questions, read, and never take anything at face value. Once you get your “built-in bullshit detector” working up to par (thanks, Papa Hemingway), you can stop patronizing the corporations responsible, which may be the only way to reign them in and save the planet.