Today I saw ‘Coke Life’ in the supermarket for the first time and it made me so angry. Just because you slap a green label on something that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any better for you or for the planet.

Then again, the marketing works. I myself am instinctively drawn to green things. Or things which claim to be green, eco-friendly, etc. 

Maybe it’s just about colour associations. Maybe the reason I bought my plastic green iPhone cover was because somehow, on some weird subconscious level, the colour green made me feel like it was a good choice. Green man says go!

So seeing these coke bottles brought this thought process to light as being obviously and absurdly ridiculous. Because I’d still never drink coke in any of its forms, whether original, zero, diet, or ‘life’ - I simply won’t touch anything that processed. But ‘coke life’ is directly targeted at health-conscious people like me. 

I felt targeted, dissected, exposed. They’ve figured out that to pull us green-smoothie-and-yoga suckers in: all we need to see are the words ‘natural’ / ‘reduced sugar’… but most importantly, of course, green packaging with a picture of a plant on it. It’s that simple.

“The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape…”

I’ve been thinking a lot about labels like these that we get bombarded with, and which appeal to those of us who fancy ourselves as conscious-consumers, i.e. who are willing to fork out an extra few dollars for something if we see it has a ‘green’ label of some sort because it makes us feel better about ourselves. Excuse my cynicism; I still do it. 

But how many of us are really informed about what any of these actually indicate? And how many of these labels actually mean effective change? How many of them are as fake and empty as coca-cola’s new claims?