Greenwash (v)- “the process of conveying a false impression or providing misleading information about how a company's products, process or practices are more environmentally sound than they really are. To make people believe that your company is doing more to protect the environment than it really is”. (Investopedia)
The word greenwash (a play on “whitewash”) first entered the Oxford English Dictionary back in 1999. Greenwashing is usually an attempt to capitalise on the growing demand for firms to do the right things in a sustainability and purpose sense, and in particular jump on the bandwagon of “green” products, reducing emissions and so on.
The same principle can apply to misleading information about human rights or other purpose-related topics, but “greenwashing” tends to relate to those environmental issues in particular. It has the potential to confuse and mislead the consumer, or even make them sceptical about truly green products or actions. Firms that are genuinely concerned and active in this area might then suffer because of the greater cynicism and lack of trust caused by the guilty parties.
The good news is that the consumer, the media and other interested parties are generally getting more savvy about greenwashing. The latest example of this followed a speech by Mark Carney, the Canadian ex-Governor of the Bank of England. He is now an author, a UN Climate Finance Envoy, and vice-chair of Brookfield Asset Management, where he has special responsibility for environmental, social and governance issues.
But recently, he was accused of greenwashing when he claimed that Brookfield had already achieved carbon “net-zero across its $575 billion asset portfolio”. But when researchers from the Greenpeace UK journalism project Unearthed examined Brookfield’s portfolio, they found that alongside its considerable renewable energy investments, it also had billions invested in oil-sands, coal and fossil gas. It owns a stake in a coal port in Australia, and gas pipelines in several countries, for instance.
Carney’s argued that net-zero was achieved “because we have this enormous renewables business that we’ve built up and all of the avoided emissions that come with that.”
So because you have businesses that don’t create emissions, you can offset that benefit against the other dirty businesses in your portfolio? No, that doesn’t make sense. It is a bit like saying I am carbon neutral, despite my car, central heating and use of plastics because I avoided any long haul flights last year – so I can credit that notional “saving” against my real emissions.
As the Unearthed website reported:
Bill Hare, director at Climate Analytics, an NGO, warned that offsetting fossil fuel projects against “avoided emissions”, as Carney appeared to do, was “not a reasonable definition of net zero”.
Once this was pointed out to Carney, he did back away from his claims, issuing a statement saying he recognized that avoided emissions do not count towards net-zero science-based targets. “Of course, simply avoiding emissions by investing in renewables at scale won’t be enough to win the race to a net zero global economy”.
So we can all contribute to the drive for more sustainable and purposeful business by keeping an eye out for greenwashing, dodgy claims and misleading marketing. Whether it is the automotive industry making false claims about fuel consumption, foods marketed as healthy and “low fat” but stuffed full of sugar and chemicals, or financiers and energy firms making exaggerated claims about their focus on renewables, we can all keep our eyes open and be ready to expose greenwashing and its related sins!