Greenpeace

Though shell has been punished twice in recent years for greenwashing in the British media (here and here), the company seems to have little concern about greenwashing in American media. Check out the ad it has been running frequently in all the most influential papers and magazines, including the Economist and Washington Post on a regular basis.

You would think that Shell would learn from mistakes in the past. Last year, Shell was told to stop using the ad to the right in the UK. The text says:

 

“... we need to find new ways of managing carbon emissions to limit climate change. Continued investment in technology is one of the key ways we are able to address this challenge, and continue to secure a profitable and sustainable future.

“The challenge of the 21st century is to meet the growing need for energy in ways that are not only profitable but sustainable... In Canada we're harnessing our global network of technical and financial expertise to unlock the potential of the vast Canadian oil sands deposit. In the USA we're helping to build what will be the nation's largest refinery.”

The UK Advertising Standards Authority disapproved of the ad:

“We noted that the large scale of the oil sands developments had considerable social and environmental impacts, including those on water conservation, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), land disturbance and waste management.

"Because we had not seen data that showed how Shell was effectively managing carbon emissions from its oil sands projects in order to limit climate change, we concluded that on this point the ad was misleading.”

The ASA concluded that the ad must not appear again in its current form.

But despite this lesson, Shell apparently has no qualms about making similar misleading claims in the US, for example the “less CO2” claim depicted above.

Shell also has no problem contributing funding to a large-scale anti-climate legislation campaign being run by the American Petroleum Institute.  That campaign was not only caught astroturfing, but also uses scare tactics and misleading, biased information to make the public and policy makers believe that climate legislation would kill jobs or drastically rise gas prices. For example, the API ad below is featured in many of the same media outlets as Shell greenwash ads. 

 

On the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit, we have some positive news from a US company: today The Coca-Cola Company announced that it will stop using HFCs in their coolers and vending machines.

For those that aren’t familiar with HFCs, they are the worst greenhouse gases you’ve never heard of. They’re used in refrigerators and air conditioners, and the most common one is 1,430 times more powerful at warming the climate than CO2.

Greenpeace has been encouraging companies to move to climate-friendly natural alternatives, like hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide – and Coca-Cola has been listening.

Coca-Cola’s transition to HFC-free refrigeration will reduce the equipment’s direct greenhouse gas emissions by a whopping 99 percent. The company and its bottling partners have approximately 10 million coolers and vending machines in place today around the world, and they are responsible for the largest part of Coca-Cola’s total climate impact. As a result of today’s commitment, they’ll reduce emissions by more than 50 million metric tons over the life of the equipment – the same as taking more than 11 million cars off the road for a year.

In addition, since Coca-Cola is such a large global company, its demand for HFC-free technologies will help to accelerate the transition to this type of equipment throughout industry, reducing costs through economies of scale.

This is especially good news as more and more scientific research emphasizes the enormous threat of HFCs. New research by NASA and Purdue shows that HFCs and other “F” gases that contain fluorine are the most effective warming agents out there. And, a recent report by the National Academy of sciences shows that HFCs will be responsible for 28-45% of carbon emissions by 2050 if society reduces carbon dioxide while leaving HFCs unchecked.

Coca-Cola’s announcement demonstrates that phasing out HFCs is a tangible and near-term action that can be taken to protect the climate. Let’s hope other companies – and participants in Copenhagen – are listening.