Greenwashing is a corporate marketing tactic where a company makes misleading, untrue or unsupported statements to depict itself as environmentally friendly or to pose as a climate leader.
Meanwhile, its actions and investments continue to threaten the environment and worsen climate change.
It is used to mislead consumers and investors, and gain or maintain public approval for a company whose actions go against the public good.
How can you spot greenwashing?
The tell-tale signs typically involve big promises with little evidence to back them up (“we’re helping to save the planet”), vague
language (“our products are all-natural and eco-friendly”) and claims that are difficult for consumers to easily prove or disprove (“we’ll be carbon-neutral by 2030”).
A 2022 Greenpeace Netherlands report led by Harvard University researchers identified some form of greenwashing in 72 per cent of social media posts by oil and gas companies.
Using clever marketing techniques, vague language, vivid imagery and calculated sponsorships, fossil fuel companies try to make you forget three major facts:
1. Fossil fuel companies’ emissions are driving the climate crisis, and have done so for more than a century.
2. Despite being among the first to know (already in the 1980s) that burning oil, coal and gas would cause global warming, fossil fuel companies engaged in decades-long public relations campaigns denying the existence of climate change.
3. Now that they can no longer contest the reality of climate change, fossil fuel companies are altering their strategy to protect their profits through tactics that
impede and delay serious climate action. This delay is at the expense of a livable future.
Have you seen the greenwashing ads on Kelowna airport’s luggage carousel: “BC LNG will reduce gloabl emissions.” The same ads, funded by an industry
lobby group called Canada Action, are also on BC ferries, city buses, bus shelters, and commercial buildings. All of these ads are green in colour, and have been found by Ad Standards Canada to be greenwashing.
Ad Standards unanimously agreed that Canada Action’s ads “distorted the true meaning of statements made by professionals or scientific authorities,” and that they "promised a verified result without competent and reliable evidence." They determined the ads created an “overall misleading impression that BC LNG is good for the environment, amounting to greenwashing.”
Many greenwashing ads are meant to convince people that we can decarbonize our use of fossil fuels and continue to use them as we have in the past. That of course is impossible.
There is hope.
The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and partners proposed amendments to the federal Competition Act to address rampant greenwashing.
The federal government adopted these new rules in June 2024 as part of Bill C-59. Some groups immediately scrubbed misleading content from their websites and communications in anticipation of anti-greenwashing provisions becoming law.
Greenwashing is a serious barrier to meaningful climate action and a livable planet so beware of the greenwashing around you.
Jane Weixl is with Climate Action Now! North Okanagan
