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greenwashing

How US Governments Could Crack Down On Greenwashing

August 22, 2024 Emily Sanders, DeSmog. , , ,
“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. , , , , ,
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. , , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , , , , ,
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. , , , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , , ,
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. , , , ,
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. , , , ,
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. , , ,
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.

Scientists Say COP28 Is A Blank Cheque For More Deadly Delay

December 18, 2023 The Canary. , , , , ,
The UN climate summit, hijacked by the fossil fuel cartel, has gifted a blank cheque to rich countries and Big Oil to kill one billion people and force billions more to flee their homes by 2100. The so-called ‘historic’ outcome of COP28 fails to deliver the most basic and necessary measures which would have prevented societal and earth systems collapse, as outlined by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and halt all new gas and oil projects. Instead, the new resolution includes numerous loopholes which will allow polluters to greenwash emissions through fictional carbon capture, meaningless carbon credits, and the re-classification of methane (“natural gas”) as a transition fuel.

COP28 Has Failed; New App Helps Public Take Matters Into Their Own Hands

December 12, 2023 Steve Topple, The Canary. , , ,
As COP28 draws to a close – mired in inaction and controversy – a new app is launching to let the public take matters into their own hands. “Earthize” will allow people to avoid any companies that greenwash, invest in fossil fuels, or damage the environment. That is, you can now stop using corporations that fuel the climate and biodiversity crises. At the end of COP28 on Tuesday 12 December, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) promised to try again to strike a deal as the Dubai climate summit passed its deadline. At-risk nations and Western powers rejected a proposal that stopped short of phasing out fossil fuels.

A Guide To Six Greenwashing Terms Big Ag Is Bringing To COP28

September 23, 2023 Rachel Sherrington and Hazel Healy, DeSmog. , , , , ,
As some of the biggest companies – in particular meat and dairy firms – grow more concerned about their climate-villain images, they are turning to greenwashing techniques: well-known tactics deployed by oil and gas industries to shift the debate away from meaningful action. Often valid concepts in and of themselves, the problem lies in how they are touted as enviro-friendly actions while companies fail to cut their contribution to global heating.  The agriculture industry has a lot to be worried about. Meat emits around a third of global emissions of methane, and action to cut this greenhouse gas has been identified by the UN and world leaders as the quickest route to slowing global heating. Farming also relies on synthetic fertilisers that are both fossil-fuel-based and emit greenhouse gases, and drives deforestation. 

Most EU Hydrogen Projects Risk Prolonging Use Of Fossil Fuels

June 25, 2023 Phoebe Cooke, DeSmog. , , ,
The European Commission is facing calls to assess the climate impact of scores of proposed hydrogen projects after data revealed that 90 percent of them could be used to prolong the use of planet-warming natural gas. Companies operating Europe’s existing natural gas infrastructure are seeking to preserve the value of their assets by converting them to carry clean-burning hydrogen to power homes and industry in line with legally-binding climate targets.  But the data compiled by Brussels-based research and advocacy group Food & Water Action Europe, and shared with DeSmog, shows that 57 percent of 147 hydrogen projects under consideration by the European Commission are designed to also carry natural gas, or “blue” hydrogen made from the fossil fuel.
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