• by Ted Page , May 28, 2014

Picture this bit of environmental nostalgia: a Native American in a canoe paddling down a polluted, trash-ridden stream; he pauses at the end to weep for the camera. Now cut to 1990s gauzy ad campaigns with families picnicking in lush green parks, puppies and children frolicking in overtly happy and healthy ways, as wind turbines spin in the background. Each of these approaches is cut from the same mold, the message laid on as thick as hearty Vermont maple syrup, “We all have to band together to protect our precious environment.”

Now fast-forward to the present – Earth Day 2014 – with campaigns more reminiscent of the bloody murder of Julius Caesar, broadcast to the whole world in high definition. Welcome to the new age of the public bash of competitors who don’t measure up to one company’s supposedly higher environmental standards. The examples in the marketplace are growing and may actually be a trend (Green stabbing? Greenupmanship? Help me out here).

Apple’s new ad features the headline “Some ideas we want every company to copy,” plus rows of gleaming solar panels – a clear dig at Samsung, and the ongoing copy infringement legal battles between the two. There’s Ford’s CMAX hybrid mockery of Cadillac’s ELR commercial, with Ford’s spokesperson Pashon Murray (founder of Detroit Dirt, a sustainability consultancy and advocacy group) as a younger, hipper alternative to Cadillac’s white, middle aged everyman (played by Neal McDonough). 

In this new, brutal game, even green brands are used as convenient foils: PETA is running ads at electric charging stations saying that eating two strips of bacon brings about more greenhouse gas emissions than driving a Prius one mile. Never mind the uncomfortable question of how exactly PETA determined that two strips of bacon can lead to this kind of gas. The bigger question is just how far the public green-thrashing of competitors will go if this trend continues. Here are a few potential thought starters for brands to consider when the gloves come off:

• The Hershey Kiss vs. a famous Mars candy bar. Headline: “A single Three Musketeers produces more greenhouse gas than a thousand Kisses.”

• Harvard vs. Yale. Headline: “The only thing Yale recycles more than us is term papers.”

• Starbucks vs. Dunkin Donuts. Headline: “America runs on virtually enslaved third-world coffee farmers.”

• Pepsi vs. Coke. Headline: "You know it's the real thing if it's depleting scarce water sources."

• Chipotle versus McDonald’s. Headline: “How happy can a meal be if it involves decimating rainforests for cattle grazing?”

I actually think that the move towards this public environmental shaming of competitors is a healthy thing. It marks a stark evolution from greenwashing towards a bolder, more confident stance by large corporations. They’re going beyond mere press releases and web landing pages that promote their “sustainability practices” towards acknowledgments that consumers do actually care about these things; recognizing that more people will in fact buy from companies that mirror their values regarding the environment.

On the flipside, I can see a real danger of the approach backfiring if these bold claims of environmental superiority turn out to be façades that can be investigated and torn down. But regardless of the outcome, I’m enjoying the cage match.