The sins of Greenwashing on the Ford Eco-Boost Engine.

The sins of Greenwashing on the Ford Eco-Boost Engine.

A perfect example of a Greenwashing around people’s daily life is from the Auto industry. Ford, for example, announced that they are going to produce their vehicle all in their new Eco-Boost Engine, which to the most buyer are a huge step taken by the company for the environment. However, as a car enthusiastic, a so-called “Eco-Boost” is just another name of a really old technology called turbocharged engine.

No matter what kind of fancy name Ford gives its new engine, EPA’s report on the latest Ford focus has a 2.0L turbocharged engine with a compression ratio of 10 to 1. In 1982, Toyota had established a 2.0L turbocharged engine on their AE86 with almost the same compression ratio, 9.6 to 1. What this means is that to look at this engine alone at the standard operating rate. The eco-boost engine creates almost the same amount of horsepower and fuel-economy. Yet, Ford claims that their new combustion turbocharged 2.0L engine is “Innovational.” That is just one of the typical example of greenwashing.

Overall, the Ford Eco-boost contains the following sins according to The 7 sins of Greenwashing.

1. The sin of No proof, since the concept of Eco-boost, and there’s no single evidence to support that a turbo engine is so called eco-friendly. As a matter of fact, yes turbo engine is more fuel efficient, but a higher compression rate could also produce more NOx, and we see many turbo engines need a regularly maintained on the turbo than a regular engine.

2. The sin of vagueness. Eco-boost contains two part, the eco and the boost, let’s take performance out of the equation and there’s just no definition for what exactly does the eco mean.

3. The sin of the lesser two evils. It’s obvious that combustion engine is creating pollution on the planet, and there’s just no point to say there’s an eco-friendly engine.

4. The sin of worshiping false labels, which is quite often in American, the eco-boost logo is a green leaf together with the Eco part. It’s quite obvious to relate them to something that is not so green.

It’s not surprising for the world to realize that product with an Eco-friendly label can easily mark their price higher and make more money out of the ideology of environmental protection, but we general public should create a piece of mind to identify these false sins and make our judgement on our own.