UNGREEN ADJECTIVE (ENVIRONMENT)

Of a person: not concerned about the environment (see environment°); of a product or activity: harmful to the environment, not ecologically aware. Etymology: Formed by adding the prefix un- to green, an adjective which would not normally have an opposite. History and Usage: An inevitable development of the green revolution, ungreen first started appearing in print in the second half of the eighties and quickly became established. In political life grey has also been tried as the opposite of green, but it is less transparent in meaning and so perhaps unlikely to be taken up in popular use. It [BAT industries] is one of the three biggest tobacco companies in the world...The trouble is that its core business is in the ungreen area of cigarettes. Guardian Weekly 30 July 1989, p. 23 It is the worst example of an ungreen commercial development in Britain; a concept of the seventies with a fundamental purpose of maximising private investment at the expense of the environment. Green Magazine Dec. 1989, p. 12