Anybody who has undertaken a beach clean-up or seen pictures of the seas filled with plastic waste can tell you that Coca-Cola product packaging is ever present in areas where they are likely to break down into microplastics and pollute our water, soil and food chains for thousands of years to come.

Now a report by the Changing Markets Foundation has slammed the company, along with many others, for greenwashing its packaging in a bid to persuade consumers that progress is being made in addressing is critical problem.

Coca-Cola claims its new bottles are made using 25% marine plastics recovered from beaches in Spain and Portugal and from the Mediterranean Sea. At the same time failing to acknowledge its responsibility in creating the mess in the first place. Read the whole sorry story here

THE US BILL PROMISING BILLIONS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE MIGHT NOT BE ALL IT SEEMS: 

The INFLATION REDUCTION ACT  is being heralded as a huge win for the climate movement. It is instead a death sentence for humanity and for the earth. The Act is a gift to the fossil fuel industry, allowing them to extract and profit for as long as possible under the guise of climate change policy. 

The Climate Crisis is here now, at home in the United States. In the last month alone, we have seen record flooding, heatwaves and wildfires. We are teetering on the edge of full-blown catastrophe, with mass extinction a distinct possibility. Federal policies which continue to promote fossil fuel expansion such as the Inflation reduction Act, is a public display of the inability of the federal government to overcome partisan politics and special interests, even in the face of a looming crisis. 

We're well used to the Government saying one thing and with smoke and mirrors delivering something rather different. Once all the dues have been paid to vested interests, lobby groups, climate sceptics and more we have been left with something that doesn't look like the claims the government made in the first place. Seems like Pressure Biden and the US Government is up to the same thing. Read the statement from Extinction Rebellion New York here:

SOMETHING YOU CAN DO:

Have you seen a BP or Shell advert recently? They love to talk up their green credentials and commitment to renewable energy - but behind the scenes, they're still ploughing money into opening up new fossil fuel projects. 

We can't let them get away with this spin. That's why I have just signed a petition calling on YouTube to ban all greenwashing from fossil fuel companies on its platform. Will you help me show them they need to lead the way on this? Join me and sign the petition:

Petition : link​

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sportswash

It's a summer of sport , and the BBC recognising that sport is not immume to climate change, and is a part of the climate discussion, has launched the BBC GREEN SPORT AWARDS to celebrate sustainability in sport. watch their video.

And yet .... sport gives a perfect cover for companies who want to 'green up' their image. So we have decided to create our very own awards - SPORTSWASHER of the year. These companies spend a fortune to be able to plaster their names across all sorts of sports - presumably hoping people will be fooled into believing they are good, healthy organisations. Nothing wrong with sponsorship - except when it's by one of these oil producing, oil investing climate destroyers.

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" .... event sponsorships are a way to build credibility and authority around your business. Essentially, you attach your business to worthy causes and high-profile events in order to nurture positive associations. Customers who attend are given strong reasons to believe you are reliable and trustworthy." Reference

And it's not just us. There's a nationwide competition to choose the worst of the worst. Badvertising and the Rapid Transition Alliance have got together to run this. Vote here.

How about these for a start:

• HSBC official banking partner of Wimbledon tennis, rugby 7s, golf, badminton

• Standard Chartered sponsoring Liverpool shirts

• Emirates sponsoring 7 football teams including Arsenal, AC Milan ..

• Ethihad airlines sponsoring Manchester City, Formula 1...

• J P Morgan sponsoring the MCC, the US Open Tennis ...

• Barclays official banking partner of the premier league

• Ineos (oil & gas exploration) sponsoring cycling, football and the NZ rugby team

A new coalmine in 2022 ??

with coal no-one wants; on the way to net zero ...

Lets look at the claims of West Cumbria and their supporters:

The mine is "carbon neutral" : as long as you don't count the 9m tonnes a year from using the coal in blast furnaces.

The coal will support UK steel making. But their documents show 87% is for export; probably even less.

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they say it's a specific type of coal..But won't reveal their evidence...and publicly available data says it's too high in sulphur.

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they say they can wash the sulphur off. But no details, they would have to put the reject coal back under ground.

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now they say it will replace Russian Coking coal. But both UK steel plants have already sourced non-Russian coal. Steel bosses say they don't need this.

 And this is a government giving out new licences to drill for gas in the North Sea (which will do absolutely nothing to enhance our fuel security) and Mr Clark's department is considering whether to give planning consent for a new coal mine (for coal which noone in this country wants)

Approving the mine would be deadly, not just because it would allow 25 years more coal mining in the UK at 9 million tonnes of GHG per year. It would also show UK hypocrisy and give other countries a green light to open new coal mines .

Vanguard Asset Management :  the largest investor in coal at $86b ; 

Standard Chartered Bank :  #1 UK bank for coal plant developers; 

Javelin Global Commodities :  key trader supporting the west cumbria mine; 

and our government.

Several UK steel industry leaders have spoken out in recent months to say that they do not need the Cumbrian coal mine. Their priority is decarbonisation of their steel plants, and attracting government help to meet competition from European steel makers who are moving swiftly towards “green steel” and the green hydrogen revolution.

Lord Deben, Chair of the UK Committee on Climate Change has repeatedly said that coking coal use in steelmaking could be displaced completely by 2035. He states that the mine would “increase global emissions and have an appreciable impact on the UK’s legally binding carbon budgets” and that Jenrick’s decision not to call in the Local Planning Authority’s decision to grant planning permission to the mine to 2049 “gives a negative impression of the UK’s climate priorities in the year of COP26”. He also referenced the 6th Carbon Budget pathways for UK steelmaking. He also said that approval of the Cumbria mine would be indefensible

 “New UK coal extraction is not needed, especially not new consents that would extract coal for decades. Evidence presented to the Public Inquiry on the Cumbria mine showed that it would increase global emissions, exacerbate climate change, and undermine global efforts to phase out coal”. This mine is planned to produce 2.8 million tonnes of metallurgical coal a year that, using the government’s own conversion factors, would emit 8.8 million tonnes of CO₂ per year when used in blast furnaces to make steel. Supporters claim it would “save” GHG emissions by avoiding imports but a) most of it is for export and b) these savings are only 96,000 tonnes a year.  If approved, coal extraction would be permitted until December 2049. Business Energy and industrial Strategy (BEIS ) 

Adani merits a website to itself - the claims of Gautam Adani to be making his company  carbon negative don't stack up by any stretch of anyone's imagination. Unless you don't count Coal, or perhaps don't count where the Coal is burned. However, it's not difficult to see that increasing activity in coal mining is completely incompatible with carbon reduction - never mind being carbon negative. 

More information here:

• Fossil fuel firms ‘have humanity by the throat’, says UN head in blistering attack The Guardian 17 June 2022

• Coal Mine Expansion Authorized in India’s Tribal Fores  Environment News Service 22 April 2022

• Adani trashes Indigenous Rights Stop Adani 16 June 2022

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check out other companies involved with Adani

Sweden’s AP7 pension fund recently announced it was adding 14 companies to its investment blacklist “for failure to act in line with the Paris Agreement due to large-scale coal operations or oil sands extraction without credible transition plans”.

Adani Enterprises Limited, the Adani Group subsidiary that owns and operates the Carmichael thermal coal mine and rail line in Australia, was one of the companies dumped from AP7’s investment portfolio.

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In a damning report looking at the economic, climate and social impacts of Adani’s under-construction Godda coal-burning power station, the Bangladesh Working Group on External Debt, in cooperation with Growthwatch, have called for Adani Power to be tried “for human rights violations and forceful acquisition of land and other natural resources” and the project to be cancelled.

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A tip-off received by the #StopAdani campaign has named Lockton Companies as Adani Australia’s new insurance broker, appointed on 29 May 2022. I put this information to Lockton and it has not been denied. A report claiming Marsh is no longer acting as the Carmichael mine’s insurance broker adds credibility to claims of Lockton’s involvement.

and not to forget Adani's cynical sponsoring of the science museum in London. read more here:

Greenpeace France protestors stormed WPP’s beach at the Cannes Lions Festival protesting agencies that work with fossil fuel companies. Read more here

Financial Times reports on ESG fund management ...... Asset managers told to clean up greenwashing and net zero claims Read more here

vanguard asset management

Roll up, roll up .... at Vanguard we have some fantastic Sustainable Life Funds for you ... you can invest with us safe in the knowledge that our Sustainable Life Funds will not be investing in any fossil fuels. Not much to expect but .... hang on a minute ....

Graphic to show % of 'sustainable' ESG funds Vanguard have ... they are the ones in green... you may have to zoom in!​

read all about it here

June winner greenwasher of the month

Greenwash from energy companies

Greenwash in meat production

Greenwash in aviation

Carbon offsetting is not warding off environmental collapse – it’s accelerating it

Wealthy companies are using the facade of ‘nature-based solutions’ to enact a great carbon land grab ....

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Have a look at this article exploring the impossibility of Carbon Offsetting being any kind of solution 

Watch this explanation - 'Carbon Offsets 101'

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