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At the very least, the timing raises questions: The biggest environmental group in the U.S. expelled 27 leaders of its Florida chapter shortly after the state committee accused the Sierra Club’s national directors of betraying their principles to endorse a “green” cleaning line by the Clorox Company.

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Sierra Club spokesman David Willett denied the suspensions had anything to do with disagreements over the group’s partnership with the Oakland-based Clorox. He said the four-year expulsion, which took effect last week, was the last in a series of steps taken to end bitter infighting that had undermined the Florida group’s work.

Willett noted another state chapter, Massachusetts, had also criticized the Sierra Club’s decision to endorse the new biodegradable cleaning line, “and no action has been taken against them, and there won’t be. That’s not how the Sierra Club works.”

First announced in January, the unprecedented partnership between the Sierra Club and Clorox has been hailed by supporters as a way to promote a green marketplace, and denounced by critics as a sell-out to a company most closely associated with Clorox Bleach. Under the deal, the Sierra Club gets an undisclosed percentage of profits from the sale of the new line, marketed under the name Green Works, in exchange for the use of its logo.

At least some ousted activists don’t buy the assertion that their suspension is unrelated to their criticism. Joy Towles Ezell, former chairwoman of the Florida chapter, told the Guardian that the same weekend in January that the chapter passed a measure condemning the deal, they were told of their impending removal.

She said that the new Clorox products should be named “Money Works” or “Toxic Works.”

“Clorox is the bad guy to me,” Ezell said. “. . .You sell your soul when you get involved with something like that.”

Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope admits he was skeptical when first approached by Clorox. But after reviewing the ingredients of the cleaners, most of which are plant products, and contemplating Clorox’s market reach, he decided to take the gamble.

“One of the reasons green home cleaning products haven’t achieved much market penetration is if they came from an environmental brand, people had the sense they won’t work … And if it came from someone with a cleaning reputation the reaction was: They can’t be green.”

Green Works may be an even bigger gamble for Clorox’s new CEO Donald Knauss, who came from Cola Cola in 2006, and who has pushed the company to launch its first new product line in 20 years. Knauss has identified sustainability as one of three core consumer trends with which he wanted to align Clorox products, and hired “green” consultants, who led him to the Sierra Club.

Green consultant Joel Makower, who worked on the project, calls the launch a watershed:

It’s an intriguing moment. Green Works enters the marketplace with a near perfect storm of market conditions: growing mainstream consumer demand for green products that don’t require compromise or sacrifice; significant interest from Wal-Mart and other big retailers in pushing greener products to the masses; a product that seems competitive with the leading green brands; and endorsement from Big Green.

Naysayers, however, predict the endorsement will undermine the credibility of the environmental group, noting that a month before the deal was signed, Clorox was fined $95,000 by the Environmental Protection Agency for donating a mislabeled Chinese version of Clorox bleach to a Los Angeles charity.

“The Sierra Club has become little more than another corporate front group,”
said Tim Hermach of Native Forest Council in Eugene, Oregon in a piece in Corporate Crime Reporter.

Hermach had special animus for the group’s executive director: “Carl Pope has sold out the Sierra Club’s mission of saving nature and now seems proud of his role as an obsequious and professional Uriah Heep. As a result, Sierra Club is getting lots of corporate appreciation, cash and favors.”

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