Greenwashing Capitalism
Article originally published in Issue 5 of Rupture, Ireland’s eco-socialist quarterly, buy the print issue:
by Samantha O’ Brien
The sixth IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report was published recently, highlighting that we need immediate rapid, large-scale reductions of our greenhouse gas emissions in this decade to prevent climate catastrophe. Alongside this, our ecological tipping points are growing apace.[1] The deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, previously a carbon sink, now emits more carbon dioxide than it can absorb due to emissions caused by fires.[2] Likewise, the 22 million tons of CO2 dissolving in the ocean each day are causing ocean acidification.[3] The scale of our planetary crisis is daunting and green capitalism has proven unequivocally that the market will not keep warming below 1.5ºC. The green market is unwilling to take on the industries and elites perpetuating the climate crisis, treating the earth as nothing more than copious amounts of raw material.
With the publishing of the IPCC report, it is imperative to focus on the climate narrative, in particular greenwashing and environmental messaging. In a nutshell, greenwashing can be described as a marketing gimmick used to mislead the public into believing a company, policy, or government is eco-friendly, when in fact, they are often the antithesis of environmentally sound practice or action.
The green consumer
Greenwashing is a term that was coined initially by Jay Estervels in 1986 in an essay about the hotel industry. He claimed that a hotel was promoting the reuse of towels for the environment. In truth, it was a cost-cutting measure and the motive wasn’t out of concern for the environment or reflective of the company’s overall environmental practice.[4]
Today, environmental messaging around ‘sustainable’ or ‘green’ products are omnipresent on the backdrop of a new wave in the environmental movement and with climate targets looming. It is not a new phenomenon, but a pervasive climate narrative that provides simple messaging; consumers can buy environmentally responsible products to solve the climate crisis. The burden is put on ordinary people to save the planet. Notable offenders, such as H&M, have gone as far as to co-opt slogans in the environmental movement with ‘eco warrior’ and ‘climate crusader’ on display in one of their shops as part of their global campaign. They came under fire for this cynical attempt at greenwashing and took down the displays, but it is one of many examples of the fast fashion industry greenwashing their image to appear ‘sustainable’ when fast fashion is a massive contributor to ecological damage that exploits workers and communities.[5]
““This framing of buying your way to a more ‘sustainable’ planet and relying on an economy based on growth releases responsibility from industries that are the biggest polluters..””
A more in-depth look at the green economy is presented in ‘Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy is Undermining the Environmental Revolution’ by Heather Rodgers.[6] She interrogates consumer-based solutions to the climate crisis, shining a light on the organic industry, biofuels, and carbon offsetting. Also, more positively, looking at transitions that can happen in farming, transport and eco-architecture. The realities of the organic industry are hard to see from a distance. It is far from the picture of farmers being paid well in distant lands. The organic palm oil industry in Indonesia is leading to deforestation and the forced removal of indigenous tribes. Her visits to sugar plantations in South America exposes an organic system with inadequate environmental checks, exploitative labour practices, and questionable farming methods.
Although written over a decade ago, her book is still relevant today; Roger opines
“I found solutions that work and saw that we know how to implement them - truly organic farming, green architecture, and energy-efficient transportation. But instead, political and corporate leaders and some in the environmental establishment are putting aside what works in exchange for what poses the least challenge to established power structures.”[7]
This framing of buying your way to a more ‘sustainable’ planet and relying on an economy based on growth releases responsibility from industries that are the biggest polluters and takes the focus off meaningful action and solutions that work.
‘Net Zero’ Carbon Colonialism
Increasingly, fossil fuel companies are trying to greenwash their image and portray themselves as the solution to the climate crisis. A recent report exemplifies how big polluters are greenwashing their image with their ‘net zero’ plans that will fail to cut emissions.[8] These pledges are coming from big fossil fuel companies and technology giants like Shell, BP, Amazon, Microsoft etc.
The report also mentioned that over 1,500 corporations made this type of net-zero emissions pledge that was welcomed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the U.N Secretary General.[9]
While governments are applauding their green market solutions, their reduction plans are not enough and not fast enough to curtail production or consumption to cut emissions. For example, Shell intends to invest four billion dollars a year in fossil gas, eight billion in oil and gas production, and increase their liquefied natural gas (LNG) operation by 20%. To meet their new zero carbon emission by 2050, they plan to use large scale carbon offsetting.[10] Not only is there not enough land to meet the demand of all the corporations and governments ‘net zero’ plans, but it will lead to ‘carbon colonialism’. The planting of trees and forests, replacing their food crops with bioenergy crops, ultimately stripping communities of their land and livelihoods.[11]
Recently, the Science Museum in London accepted sponsorship from Shell for its new climate change exhibition ‘Our Future Planet’. Over twenty activists tried to occupy the museum after their petitions were ignored.
These companies will continue to rely on dangerous geoengineering technology and paint themselves as green saviours that will disproportionately impact the environment, small farmers and indigenous communities in the Global South.
Greenwashing in Ireland
While researching greenwashing, I mainly came across articles about the sins of greenwashing in a consumer context. These were usually concerning companies using vague language so that you could not substantiate their claims, the hidden trade-off; calling something environmentally friendly based on a small set of attributes, or being the lesser of two evils.[12] The same scrutiny can be applied to governments and their policies. For example, ‘Origin Green’ in Ireland claims to be “the only sustainability programme in the world that operates on a national scale, uniting government, the private sector and food producers through Bord Bia”. Environmental groups have criticised it for being more about “greenwashing than promoting genuine stability”, with Bord Bia “Certified Green” companies appearing on the Environmental Protection Agency’s’ “name and shame” list.[13]
The recent Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill, which commits to ‘net-zero’ emissions by 2050, was weak and peppered with vague language and loopholes. Already the climate narrative from the establishment is switching to putting the burden on working-class people, with Paschal Donohoe, in the wake of the IPCC report, talking about a carbon tax, which will only serve to distract us from real climate action. The class bias in Ireland’s Green Party has always been clear and has historically given the environmental movement a bad reputation for their support of carbon taxes.[14] Supporting carbon taxes will only serve to alienate working-class people from the environmental movement who will bear the brunt of these measures.[15] Not only will they not reduce emissions, but they feed the narrative that responsibility lies with the consumer, the individual. This framing renders us powerless when capitalism is the primary driver of climate change.
What Next
Climate change is a big issue for people. A recent survey shows that over 93% of EU citizens see climate change as a serious problem.[16] When Covid-19 restrictions are lifted, the environmental movement will begin to organise on the streets again. As an ecosocialist, the task at hand may seem daunting. There is no straightforward path on how to build a majority movement capable of challenging the status quo. It is no easy feat to overhaul a profit-driven system obsessed with overconsumption. Ian Angus in ‘Facing the Anthropocene: fossil capitalism and the crisis of the earth system’ provides a refreshing take that resonated with me on the movement we need. To touch on one of his points, one of the worst mistakes he argues is socialists standing on the periphery of movement complaining about what a movement ought to be. He states, “Fighting for immediate gains against capitalist destruction and fighting for the ecosocialist future are not separate activities, they are aspects of one integrated process”. [17]
With climate anxiety being real for people, organising collectively in movements, our workplaces and communities can help us take back the power. It cannot happen overnight, nor is there one plan or programme to accomplish this. Working within broader movements is a starting point. United, we can stand against the “green” platitudes of corporations and those in power. With greenwashing usurping real climate action, we need to organise and work towards radically transforming our society, where our economy is organised around people and the planet, not profits.
Notes
[1] Masson-Delmotte, V., et al. IPCC, 2021: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.
[2] Carrington, Damian. ‘Amazon Rainforest Now Emitting More CO2 than It Absorbs’. The Guardian, 14 July 2021, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/14/amazon-rainforest-now-emitting-more-co2-than-it-absorbs.
[3] Spear, Jess. ‘Poking the Angry Beast: The Other Carbon Problem’. Rupture, https://rupture.ie/articles/poking-the-angry-beast-the-other-carbon-problem. Accessed 14 Aug. 2021
[4] Watson, Bruce. ‘The Troubling Evolution of Corporate Greenwashing’. The Guardian, 20 Aug. 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/aug/20/greenwashing-environmentalism-lies-companies.
[5] McCarthy, Nicole. ‘Fast Fashion - Long Term Devastation’. Rupture, https://rupture.ie/articles/fast-fashion. Accessed 14 Aug. 2021.
[6] Rogers, Heather. Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution. 1. Scribner hardcover ed, Scribner, 2010.
[7] ibid p.180
[8] Warren, Izzy. ‘By Greenwashing Shell, the Science Museum Is Failing Young People’. Climate Home News, 21 June 2021, https://www.climatechangenews.com/2021/06/21/greenwashing-shell-science-museum-failing-young-people/.
[9] The Big Con | Corporate Europe Observatory. https://corporateeurope.org/en/big-con. Accessed 14 Aug. 2021.
[10]‘Not-Their-Lands: The Land Impact of Royal Dutch Shell’s Net Zero Climate Target’. ActionAid International, https://actionaid.org/publications/2021/not-their-lands-land-impact-royal-dutch-shells-net-zero-climate-target. Accessed 14 Aug. 2021.
[11] The Big Con | Corporate Europe Observatory. https://corporateeurope.org/en/big-con. Accessed 14 Aug. 2021.
[12] D’Alessandro, Nicole. ‘7 Sins of Greenwashing (And 5 Ways to Keep It Out of Your Life)’. EcoWatch, https://www.ecowatch.com/7-sins-of-greenwashing-and-5-ways-to-keep-it-out-of-your-life-1881898598.html. Accessed 14 Aug. 2021.
[13] ‘Origin Green Needs to Be Put out to Grass’. An Taisce - The National Trust For Ireland, https://www.antaisce.org/news/origin-green-needs-to-be-put-out-to-grass. Accessed 14 Aug. 2021.
[14] O’Donoghue, Patrick. ‘Greenwashing the Establishment: How the Irish Greens Sold Out Environmentalists and the Working Class’. Novara Media, 12 Sept. 2020, https://novaramedia.com/2020/09/12/greenwashing-the-establishment-how-the-irish-greens-sold-out-environmentalists-and-the-working-class/.
[15] Spear, Jess. ‘Negligible and Damaging: Why the Left Should Not Support Carbon Taxes’. RISE, https://www.letusrise.ie/featured-articles/negligible-and-damaging-why-the-left-should-not-support-carbon-taxes. Accessed 14 Aug. 2021.
[16] ‘Citizen Support for Climate Action’. Climate Action - European Commission, 23 Nov. 2016, https://ec.europa.eu/clima/citizens/support_en.
[17] Angus, Ian. Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System. NYU Press, 2016