Sidestepping greenwashing: editorial governance and semantic design for ESG

Not certifying, orienting

Everything rests on a distinction set upfront, and it is that distinction which decides the credibility of the rest. Go Green is not a label certifying virtuous products, it is the identity of a corporate ESG policy. The nuance looks rhetorical, it is not.

An in-house label claims to attest, and exposes itself immediately to the charge of self-assessment. A program identity is there to orient: it helps distributors and end customers understand what the policy is trying to address and spot how the product portfolio is shifting as a result. The first claims a result, the second makes a movement legible.

That switch imposes a stance, and the stance chosen is humble. Go Green does not claim absolute, demonstrable success. It acknowledges the need for a transition in the sector while owning its political and financial complexities. Communication therefore rests on milestones set by external audits, each stage measuring the ground covered since the last, **without ever referring to an end state**. That is the rule that protects the program: you cannot be accused of lying about a destination you do not claim to have reached.

External credibility rests on third parties whose criteria we do not write: auditors across the whole chain, and frameworks such as EcoVadis and B Corp. It is doubled by internal work that is rarely shown, training the teams in ESG communication and in eco-design at the product development level. A program that does not train the people who design the products remains a wrapper.

What gets a product into the program

The identity is only worth something if belonging to the program rests on verifiable thresholds rather than on judgment. The framework works in two stages, and that structure is what makes it defensible.

**Prerequisites, which condition eligibility.** Recycled or bio-based materials must be backed by a certification or an equivalent supporting document. A bio-based material must not compete directly with food or animal feed production, FSC certification being acceptable as proof. The product must not increase CO2 emissions compared with its standard equivalent, a requirement waived for recycled products. The main transport leg must not be by air, prescription being the exception. And finally, any communication must state the product's environmental benefit clearly.

That last point is the most unusual, and it is the one that interests me most: the framework does not merely qualify the product, it constrains how the product may be talked about. A communication criterion written into a product framework is rare, and it locks down precisely the place where greenwashing usually settles.

**Then differentiating criteria, of which at least one must be met.** At least 20 % recycled or bio-based material, which commits the design and targets impact across the whole life cycle. At least 50 % renewable energy in the manufacturing process, which commits production. Or at least 20 % CO2 reduction compared with the standard product.

A product that does not clear that double barrier does not carry the mark, whatever its commercial appeal.

A brand IP, not a sub-brand

Go Green is not a child brand. It is a brand IP, in the same way as the Platinum technology, as Prolaser or as the Seamless program. That classification is not administrative, it determines the entire field of what is possible.

A directive handed down from the CEO required the same typeface across all the company's IPs. So before starting I had inherited the heaviest constraint there is for a typographic logotype: the typeface was imposed. One opening remained, the wish to extract from it a minimal mark capable of standing for Go Green in a reduced form.

That opening carried the whole design. When the typeface is locked, the only freedom left is what you can make the letters themselves say.

Two Gs making a leaf and an infinity

The mark is built on the interlacing of the two Gs in Go Green. Where they cross, they draw an infinity sign, a reference to the circularity the subject calls for.

The same construction produces a second reading. The spur of the G enters the stem on a diagonal, tapering at its ends, and that movement brings a double leaf into view. A single stroke therefore carries both ideas, the loop and the plant, without either being added on top of the other. That is the condition for a mark to stay legible at small sizes: stacked symbols produce illegible logos, symbols superimposed within one gesture produce marks.

The italic treatment finishes the whole by giving the mark the momentum of the "Go", a forward movement that prevents the purely contemplative reading ecological imagery so often invites.

The white paper, written by the people who know

The program's white paper is not a communications document dressed up as a technical one. It comes out of the external audit work, written by Quentin Chapelain, Head of ESG, and reviewed and approved by the auditors themselves.

My involvement was limited to layout and to the scope of distribution, the content having been reworked so as not to expose highly strategic material externally. That division of roles deserves stating, because it is the condition of everything else: on a subject where the slightest approximation turns against whoever published it, the art director gives form, the art director does not write the data.