The truth about the climate and ecological emergency
greenwash (noun): activities by a company or an organisation that are intended to make people think that it is concerned about the environment, even if its real business actually harms the environment.
Government & big business: lies and greenwash
How do they manipulate the truth with clever language ?
See how sustainable flying and green fuels are lies and greenwash
Is sustainable flying really a possibility?
awards time - who will be our greenwasher of the month for January?
some ideas for the shortlist:
how about stopping drilling ? Read the story from Greenpeace here
'We're helping the National Trust plant 2 million trees over the next 4 years to help tackle Climate Change ... making new homes for nature and protecting landscapes.' Read their sustainability info here.
For all the great work Shell are doing in Nigeria, South Africa, and their support for the Science Museum in London. Have a look at our special feature on Shell here
£100bn+ so a few people can save minutes on a journey.
more oil drilling In the north sea. The same UK government taking a lead on the Climate Crisis and showing the world how it's done!
why don't they just stop?.
'businesses, including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever and Nestle, have this weekend signed an open letter recommending such a “plastic treaty”.
And one for the EU & UK Regulators - (leaders in tackling climate change) their position on Ghost flights
UK regulation states that airlines must use their landing slots more than 80% of the time in order to keep them. This was suspended at the outset of the pandemic but is now 50%, with plans to return to 80% by March 2022. More here
ghost flights
earth day 2021: companies accused of greenwashing
A growing number of consumers say they’re willing to pay more for products with a sustainability message. But when ads make something sounds better for the environment than it actually is, that is called greenwashing.
Here’s a roundup of companies and their products consumers should be mindful of this Earth Day 2021 that have been accused of not being as environmentally friendly as advertised (Note: NAD is the National Advertising Division and ASA is the Advertising Standards Authority). Read the article and see the full list here
greenwashing: how we are duped
From Shout Out UK an expose of some of the biggest Greenwashers: How Companies Dupe Us Into Buying Misleading Eco-Products. Read it here
Corporate profits depend heavily on destroying the environment. While cases of hydropower investments evicting communities and toxic waste being dumped into rivers make headlines, we don’t realise the full extent of how involved corporations are with ecocide.
Despite promising to halve its carbon emissions by 2030, Shell is spending more on greenwash than it is on green energy! It's like #dontlookup but it's real. #ClimateCrisis
JPMorgan Chase Tops Dirty List Of 35 Fossil Fuel-Funding Banks:
JPMorgan Chase contributes more money towards fossil fuel industries than any other bank, putting a total of $268 billion into coal, oil and gas firms over the last four years, according to a new study.
In total, the world’s biggest banks have put $2.7 trillion into those industries since the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to the Banking on Climate Change 2020 report, which tracked data on 35 private financial institutions.
Read the story here
JPMorgan Chase are investing £1million in greenwashing their reputation by convincing the Literacy Trust to let them sponsor a children's literacy programme and roping in Childrens' Laureate and How To Train Your Dragon legend Cressida Cowell to endorse the scheme, called (without a hint of irony) 'Chase Rewarding Futures'.
The Literacy Trust describe the collaborator "Building on JPMorgan Chase’s decades-long support for local communities in the UK ..." (or alternatively "Building on JPMorgan Chase's decades long support for climate destroying industries in the UK and around the world")
The climate profiteers, who made a profit of $123 billion in 2020, are the world's most destructive bank, investing $268 billion into coal, oil and gas in the last four years, according to Forbes: The bank are destroying the futures of the very children they are using as marketing tools in one of the most cynical bits of greenwashing we've seen. Why not ask @cressidacowell and @Literacy_Trust to protect their readers and stop providing cover to the worst of all the investors in climate and ecological disaster.
net zero: sustainable: eco: green: greening companies: carbon Offsetting: carbon-neutral: climate resilient: green growth
what do these expressions mean? have a look at: "the language of greenwash"
greenwash: mind your language
You've been hearing them all year, the way the government and big business talk about their progress in reducing emissions. Admittedly from time to time the stories are true, but are mostly exaggerated and are mostly just deceiptful. They want to tell us about all the great things they are doing but it's important to understand how they tell their stories and how in doing this how they mislead us all - into believing they're actually doing something positive. A recent article suggests we must be on alert all the time to spot Greenwash - "To survive this post-Cambridge Analytica world you must treat everything you encounter as if it might be a #sponsoredpost". Read the article here
green growth: is a term to describe a hypothetical path of economic growth that is environmentally sustainable. It is based on the understanding that as long as economic growth remains a predominant goal, a decoupling of economic growth from resource use and adverse environmental impacts is required. Maybe we can have some green growth, maybe we can have more bicycles, more public transport and more wind farms - but another thing where we're talking about energy intensive things. How can we have green growth in flying? or oil and gas exploration? How about this ... a solar powered oil well !
That inedible dish called the EU Taxonomy
For the better part of the last three years a large group of experts has worked, on behalf of the European Commission, on a list of ‘green activities’, also known as the Taxonomy of environmentally sustainable investments. The list underwent a public consultation in December 2020 during which environmental experts from far and wide contributed their knowledge to make it greener and smarter.
But what was finally included in the list .... ? Read the story here
Are there lessons to be learnt for 2022?
Two at least. First, greenwashing is not a problem for the green transition, it is THE problem. One that calls for appropriate measures. Second, we cannot expect institutions to address the transition by consulting the very same lobbyists that are fighting against it. And if institutions fail to address greenwashing, it’ll be down to us, civil society, to straighten things up.
Read the story here
THE GREEN ROW OVER THE UKS LARGEST RENEWABLE POWER PLANT ... THE CONTROVERSY OF WOOD PELLETS AS A GREEN ENERGY SOURCE.
Find out more about DRAX - the the UK's single biggest source of CO2, getting massive subsidies from the UK government and claiming to be Carbon Neutral (because of the murky business of not properly allocating Carbon emissions to the place they are used). Read the stories on the BBC here
The company behind a power plant accused of being Britain’s biggest carbon emitter is described by The Prime Minister as an example of the “best of UK innovation and green technology”, read about it in The Independent
Read about it in the Telegraph
The Drax power plant in Yorkshire – largest power station in the country producing 6% of the UK’s electricity and it is one of the biggest single sources of carbon emissions in the UK. Ask the Government they’d say it is officially virtually carbon neutral. It now burns Biomass.
Uses trees which have been turned into pellets. The claim is that it’s green because new trees will be planted, trees which will take between 30 and 100 years to fully grow and be a 1:1 equivalent. Technically this isn’t Britain’s problem since the carbon emissions are the responsibility of the country that supplies the biomass, not the country that burns it, and virtually all the biomass that Drax burns is imported. Biomass is zero rated at the point of combustion so it can be ignored when the UK calculates its progress to net zero.
Drax says it produces 12% of the UK's renewable electricity, and “The emissions produced when biomass is used are accounted for in the land use sector” (in other words in the country of their origin). “To count them again in the energy sector would be double counting” ..... “The sustainable working forests we source from ... are harvested for other sectors like construction ... Drax only sources from forests which are stable and growing, which ensures there is no carbon debt”
14/15 million tons of CO2 every year, and we’re told this is green power.
£800m in subsidies to Drax in subsidies because they burn biomass. Being used to mislead people into thinking we are further along the road of the Industrial Green Revolution.
C4: How Green is the Government?
Government “We are absolutely committed to tackling climate change, with the UK having cut emissions faster than any G7 country over the past three decades.” “ Building on the PM’s 10 Point Plan, our landmark NetZero Strategy sets out a clear path for reaching net zero emissions by 2050, with £26bn investment to help develop low-carbon technologies and create hundreds of thousands of new green jobs”
C4: How Green is the Government?
The UK Hydrogen Strategy - Blue or Green or Grey?
Carbon Capture ?
Industrial Scale Wind Farms ...
UK Investing in Coal !
UK Road Building Schemes ...
New Oil & Gas licences
Our imports are not counted in our emissions ...
£124m fund for nature .... £27b for roads .... £108b for HS2
Greenwash from energy companies
Greenwash in meat production
Greenwash in aviation
In spite of the occasional bit of good news, most of the landscape is pretty bleak. Big corporations and governments around the world are finally starting to say the right things about the Climate And Ecological Emergency; it's only taken them 50 years since science showed unequivocally what a catastrophe we are heading towards. Unfortunately their fine words are often accompanied by lies, half truths and disinformation. We will be highlighting some of the most spectacular examples of this cynical behaviour and awarding them "Certified 100% Greenwash". If you have any examples of Greenwash you'd like to share or would like to get in touch, please use greenwash.earth@gmail.com