I'm So Tired Of Being Green.(Cover Story: Who Is the Greenest of Them All?; CLOSING ESSAY)(environmentally-friendly products)

Byline: Susan H. Greenberg; With Ana Elena Azpurua and Christopher Werth

One recent poll showed that American consumers are increasingly unlikely to spend money on energy-efficient goods and services.

I'll admit it: I am a lapsed recycler. When confronted recently with an empty jar of peanut butter, rather than soak it in hot water to remove every last smear before placing it in the recycling bin, I simply tossed the jar in the trash can (and quickly covered it with greasy paper towels to avert the wrath of my eco-fanatic husband). In my mind, I made a quick and highly unscientific calculation: saving the planet from one little plastic jar wasn't worth my time or the hot water necessary to clean it.

I may be wrong about that. But the fact is, I don't know what to believe anymore. I'm sick of everyone from Al Gore to the guy who mows my grass telling me to "go green." I'm tired of sifting through the "eco-safe" claims of products as diverse as cleansers, cars and cookies: recycled, recyclable, reusable, organic, all-natural, environmentally friendly, environmentally preferable, environmentally safe, biodegradable, compostable, ozone-friendly, zero-carbon, carbon-neutral -- the list is limited only by the imaginations of the marketing geniuses who developed it. We are drowning in so many vague, dubious or breathlessly hyped assertions that sometimes it's easier just to throw the sticky peanut-butter jar away. "Confusion creates inner shock," says Suzanne Shelton, CEO of the Shelton Group, a U.S. marketing firm that monitors America's environmental pulse. "And when consumers are confused, they just do nothing."

I am not alone in my green fatigue. The Shelton Group's latest study, Energy Pulse 2007, revealed that between 2006 and 2007, Americans' enthusiasm for energy-efficient products and services fell across the board. Among its findings: the number of green or energy-efficient activities consumers said they participated in--such as recycling or riding a bike to work instead of driving--dropped from an average of 3.63 in 2006 to 3.0 last year. Furthermore, the number of respondents who considered energy efficiency "important/extremely important" in deciding whether to buy a product fell from 72 to 67 percent. "We are really seeing a backlash to the whole green thing," says Shelton. "We've tested environmental messaging for some clients lately, and we get a lot of eye rolls and deep sighs. We hear things like 'I'm so tired of the green label being slapped on everything,' 'I'm so tired of being guilted into being green'."

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