HGTV Greenwashing Giveaway?
HGTV - let me ask you one question. Why? Why, why, why? You have this beautiful home that is Gold LEED Certified. You’ve put a lot of technology and innovations in this home, in the kitchen, bathrooms, flooring, counters, appliances, etc. But why did you have to go ruin it with this one item? Maybe I can lend this out to the winner of the house - please do me a favor and sell one item.
I picked up on this story from our friends at Ecorazzi. Maybe labeling HGTV as greenwashers is a bit harsh. The house is LEED certified and looks fantastic. As part of their Green House giveaway, they’re also giving away a Yukon Hybrid with the house. A HUGE SUV that gets a whopping 20mpg. I wrote about the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid back in December and you can read my comments and feelings there. The Yukon just kinda ruins the entire picture for me.
Please sell that damn Yukon! If you want to live a green life, do it. Sure, every little bit helps, but come on, a massive vehicle that gets 20mpg…and that is what the manufacturer says and that figure is never correct.
I think John Lennon once sang, “Imagine there’s no Yukon, sitting in the driveway. Imagine all the people taking public transportation. Imagine there’s no greenwashing or corporate America exploiting all the people… Woohoo, hoo, hoo.” Maybe I’m paraphrasing…
Imagine
LEED certification of an HGTV dream house? That’s awesome. But yeah, drop the Yukon already. GM is desperate and HGTV must have signed a deal with the devil since a huge GM SUV has been given away with the house every year…
But we all know HGTV could do better by investing that $1M or so in community projects instead of giving away a house that most people who win sell because they can’t afford the property taxes…
The story of this house’s environmental footprint goes beyond, well, its actual footprint. Where this house was located along with HGTV’s obsession of showing their dream homes in some sort of paradise only backs up everything that is wrong with how we portray the ideal way to live in America. When I talk about sustainability, I always try to think first in the non-political realm of spatiality. In other words, we simply don’t have enough space in the world to give everybody a little single-family home on an island. This is the real environmental issue. Moreover, it’s less about the gas mileage and more about the number of miles we make people drive to get to their “dream” home.
if HGTV has so much funding to redistribute, it could grow a green conscience and spread the goodness toward truly innovative research.
by promoting small hybrids and off grid technologies, easy to maintain produce gardens and passive insulation/heating/cooling, and especially water conservation principles.
the shows are popular, the waste is appalling. recycling not smashing. minimalism not sensationalism.
curb your extravagant enthusiasm folks!
[...] the answer. It shouldn’t be the future. It is not fixing any of our worldly problems. I guess HGTV didn’t get that message, either. Anyway…enjoy some [...]
[...] of the channel and there will be product placement in many shows. I bitched about this with the HGTV Green House giveaway. Many of these shows have been on other Discovery Channel owned channels. One of which is Mean [...]