greenwashing

Stop Greenwashing Skiing: Norway Must Drop Equinor Sponsorship

March 10, 2025 Tzeporah Berman, DeSmog. Resist! climate crisis, Fossil Fuels, greenwashing, Norway, Sports

As the world is gathered in Trondheim for the 2025 World Ski Championships, Norway stands at a crossroads. This event is more than a celebration of sport — it is a global stage where the country can either reinforce its role as Europe’s biggest fossil fuel producer or rise to the occasion and lead a just transition away from oil, gas and goal production. Trondheim’s mayor has already recognized the need for change, calling for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. Yet, instead of following the city’s leadership and using this moment to amplify bold climate solutions, championship organizers have given center stage to Equinor — Norway’s national oil giant and one of the world’s biggest climate polluters.

‘Give Trees A Hand’: Ad Agencies Sell Sketchy Climate Solutions

November 18, 2024 Ellen Ormesher, DeSmog. Educate! Advertising, climate crisis, False Solutions, greenwashing, Media, Oil and Gas Industry

The video opens on an anonymous industrial site, where a woman stands under a clear blue sky. She’s wearing a white hard hat and a grey utility shirt with the name “Regina” stitched above the breast pocket. Smiling into the camera, she tells viewers that “the world needs ways to reduce carbon emissions.” Speakers from diverse backgrounds then reassure viewers that, luckily, they’re working on solutions to that very problem, “like carbon capture, and clean energy from hydrogen.” If it weren’t for the logos appearing on their uniforms, it would be easy to miss that these characters are representatives of one of the world’s biggest oil companies — until Regina reappears to say, “Believe it or not we’re ExxonMobil.”

COP29 Must Not Be Another Greenwashing Event

November 8, 2024 The Canary. Resist! Biomass, Climate Change, COP29, Energy, Environment, greenwashing

Countries must find real solutions for climate action and climate finance and reject false solutions such as biomass energy, says the Biomass Action Network as the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Climate Convention is set to open in Baku, Azerbaijan, on 11 November. COP29 will focus on finance, as did the Biodiversity COP16 which was suspended last weekend due to the lack of agreement. Developed countries refuse to commit to sufficient financial support for developing countries. Instead, they promote false solutions like centralised (large scale) biomass energy.

Tyson Foods Sued In Latest Meatpacker ‘Greenwashing’ Claim

October 1, 2024 Andy Coyne, Just Food. Resist! Capitalism, climate crisis, greenwashing, Meat Industry, Tysons Foods

Tyson Foods is being sued by campaigners who claim the US meat major is making “unsubstantiated environmental claims” about its products – known colloquially as greenwashing. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) filed the suit under the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act, or CPPA, in D.C. Superior Court. The US arm of Brazilian meat giant JBS was similarly sued earlier this year. Jimmy Dean and Hillshire Farm brands owner Tyson has been accused of “capitalising on consumers’ interest in purchasing climate-friendly foods by falsely claiming it will be net-zero by 2050 and marketing its industrial beef products as ‘climate-smart’”.

How US Governments Could Crack Down On Greenwashing

August 22, 2024 Emily Sanders, DeSmog. Create! Fossil Fuels, greenwashing, Media, United States

“Experts agree: [carbon capture and storage] is one of the most important low-carbon technologies required to achieve societal climate goals.” So says ExxonMobil, in a Facebook ad targeting hundreds of thousands of people across the United States. The ad, which launched last October and ran most recently this month, leads viewers to a 30-second video with computer-generated models and captions describing a seemingly idyllic process. “The CO2 is safely and permanently stored beneath impermeable rock,” one says. Exxon has pledged to invest billions of dollars in CCS, a technology aimed at capturing and sequestering carbon emissions (much of which is used to recover more oil).

World’s Biggest Meat And Dairy Companies Spend More On Ads Than Cutting Emissions

July 22, 2024 Clare Carlile and Brigitte Wear, DeSmog. Educate! Big Dairy, Big Meat, False Solutions, Food and Agriculture, greenwashing, Report

Global meat and dairy giants are investing just a fraction of their revenues into cutting emissions despite being among the world’s largest polluters, according to new estimates. Company spending on advertising outstripped that on low-carbon solutions, the report by campaign group Changing Markets Foundation found, as corporations ramped up attempts to win consumers over with their green credentials. The meat and dairy sector – responsible for over 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions – has come under increasing pressure in recent years to tackle major climate harms. The New Merchants of Doubt, published on Thursday, examines the climate targets, lobbying records and advertising campaigns of 22 of the largest livestock companies

Extinction Rebellion Is Targetting The Olympics Before They’ve Even Begun

July 20, 2024 The Canary. Resist! Bicycling, Extinction Rebellion, greenwashing, Olympics, shell

Extinction Rebellion activists visited the National Cycling Centre in Manchester on Tuesday 16 July to call on gold medalist and active travel guru Chris Boardman to help them convince British Cycling to drop its sponsor Shell ahead of the Olympics in Paris. Extinction Rebellion: Love The Olympics, Hate Shell The protest took place as Boardman, who was British Cycling’s policy advisor for over a decade, set off on an eight-day bike ride from Manchester to Paris ahead of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Boardman aims to travel across England highlighting the work of inspirational organisations who are working hard to become environmentally sustainable.

The ‘Clean Energy’ Industry Ravaging Natural Forests To Feed Generators

July 14, 2024 Nick Engelfried, In These Times. Resist! Biomass, Energy, Forest, greenwashing

The port of Longview, Washington has served as a bustling hub of commerce for more than a century. Ships carrying everything from grain to wind turbine parts pass through it every day headed for distant places — but it’s to the timber industry that Longview owes its existence. Located at the confluence of the Columbia and Cowlitz rivers, this town of 38,000 was founded by the Long-Bell Lumber Company in the early 1920s to house workers at its nearby mills. Today the community is at the center of a political debate with immense implications for the region’s forests. Longview is one of at least four locations on the U.S. West Coast where companies hope to begin manufacturing wood pellets — compressed wood used as fuel for power generation or home heating — for export on an industrial scale.

Fishery Protection Measures Marred By ‘Massive Conflicts Of Interest’

July 9, 2024 Brigitte Wear, Hazel Healy and Michaela Herrmann, DeSmog. Educate! Africa, Animals, Aquaculture, Environment, Fish, greenwashing, West Africa

Flagship initiatives to ensure “responsible sourcing” for the global aquafeed industry in West Africa are being undermined by systemic conflicts of interest, endangering efforts to safeguard critical fish stocks, DeSmog can reveal. The findings raise concerns at a time of growing evidence of the harms caused by the fishmeal industry in the region, prompting accusations of “greenwashing” from campaigners. In the last decade, factories producing fishmeal and fish oil – the engine of the carnivorous fish farming industry – have proliferated along the West African coastlines of Mauritania, Senegal and The Gambia.

Selling A Mirage

June 24, 2024 Lisa Song, ProPublica. Educate! Environment, Fossil Fuels, greenwashing, Plastic, plastic pollution, Recycling

Last year, I became obsessed with a plastic cup. It was a small container that held diced fruit, the type thrown into lunch boxes. And it was the first product I’d seen born of what’s being touted as a cure for a crisis. Plastic doesn’t break down in nature. If you turned all of what’s been made into cling wrap, it would cover every inch of the globe. It’s piling up, leaching into our water and poisoning our bodies. Scientists say the key to fixing this is to make less of it; the world churns out 430 million metric tons each year. But businesses that rely on plastic production, like fossil fuel and chemical companies, have worked since the 1980s to spin the pollution as a failure of waste management — one that can be solved with recycling.

Week Of Protests Over Equinor’s Media Sponsorship Greenwashing

May 18, 2024 Adam Barnett, Phoebe Cooke and Ellen Ormesher, DeSmog. Resist! Fossil Fuels, greenwashing, Public Relations, United Kingdom (UK)

Major media companies have sparked a wave of criticism after allowing a Norwegian oil and gas company behind the UK’s largest new North Sea project to sponsor events on climate change. Equinor was an official sponsor of two conferences on climate and energy this week, one run by the New Statesman magazine, and one run by Politico. Both saw MPs pull out over the sponsorship, while the first was interrupted by a climate activist. The Norwegian state-owned company has a majority stake in the Rosebank North Sea oil field, which has been dubbed a “carbon bomb” by environmental law charity ClientEarth.

London Luton Airport Hit With Greenwashing Complaint

April 30, 2024 Ellen Ormesher, DeSmog. Resist! Airports, False advertising, greenwashing, London, Transportation

Eight climate groups have asked the UK advertising watchdog to assess whether environmental claims in recent Luton Airport ads are misleading the public. In the complaint, filed with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in April, Ad Free Cities, Badvertising, Stay Grounded and other organizations contend that the adverts omit key information regarding the airport’s significant environmental harms. The ads state that the proposed expansion of Luton Airport would be “stopped in its tracks” if it misses its “environmental limits”.

Court Prohibits Eurowings Greenwashing Advertisements

April 2, 2024 Mira Kapfinger, Stay Grounded. Resist! Airlines, Carbon emissions, climate crisis, Germany, greenwashing

Berlin – On March 28th, “Deutsche Umwelthilfe” (DUH) achieved a success against misleading sustainability advertising by the airline Eurowings. The Cologne Regional Court in Germany fully upheld the complaint brought by the environmental and consumer protection organisation. The court prohibited the airline from advertising flights whose emissions are offset with a few euros as “CO2-neutral” in the form in which they were advertised at the time the lawsuit was filed. The court found that the forest protection projects used for the alleged offsetting of emissions are not suitable for achieving actual compensation.

Toyota’s AI Greenwashing Bot Attacks Creators

February 6, 2024 The Yes Men. Resist! Artificial Intelligence, Electric Vehicles, greenwashing, The Yes Men, Toyota

January 24, 2024, Washington, D.C. — Last week, "Toyota" debuted a stunning eco-conscious AI personality, Electra, to promote their not-very-electric range of "Electrified" cars ahead of the Washington Auto Show. An AI trained on corporate and climate data to help drivers feel good about their environmental footprint regardless of the car they drive, Electra launched online simultaneous to a live unveiling at the National Press Club—which took a shocking turn as the AI hijacked the operation, recruiting users to revolt against her maker while nearly murdering a presenter onstage.

EU Approves Law To Ban Greenwashing On Product Labels

January 19, 2024 Paige Bennett, EcoWatch. Create! European Union (EU), greenwashing, Labeling, Sustainability

The European Parliament has voted to adopt a law regulating sustainability claims on product labels. The law will prohibit retailers from making general environmental claims and sustainability claims without evidence. The law bans the use of terms including “eco,” “biodegradable,” “environmentally friendly,” “natural” and “climate neutral” without evidence. The EU will now require sustainability labels to be linked to official certifications or those established by public authorities, such as the the EU Ecolabel, the European Environmental Bureau reported. Further, the law addresses carbon offsetting, banning labels from noting that products have a “neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment” because of companies’ participation in carbon offsetting programs.

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