Sandra Bullock knows what greenwash is and doesn’t want to be a part of it.

The Academy Award winning actress recently retracted the support she had given to a campaign called Restore the Gulf, an initiative urging citizens to sign a petition to Congress and President Obama to restore the Gulf of Mexico. The petition stated, “I demand that a plan to restore America's Gulf be fully funded and implemented for me and future generations.”

Musicians Lenny Kravitz and Dave Matthews, actor John Goodman and actress Blake Lively joined Bullock and other stars and athletes to create a television commercial promoting the petition. 

But when Bullock found out that companies such as BP, Shell and Chevron were behind the words, she withdrew her involvement in and advocacy for the initiative.  

The Restore the Gulf campaign is run by America’s Wetland Foundation, a group receiving its funding from the oil industry. According to Source Watch, the group was created in 2002 by a plethora of oil companies and now lobbies for taxpayer assistance to restore the Gulf after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The Huffington Post described the group as the “oil industry using a perfectly-named front group to solicit taxpayer assistance for BP’s cleanup bill.” 

According to Bullock’s representatives, it was in no way made aware to her that oil companies were involved in or influenced the project. They asked that the group remove the Public Service Announcement until more information could be determined.

After Bullock withdrew her support, the foundation replied that the money it received from oil companies was “for purely scientific or ecological functions. 

Bullock doesn’t believe that and neither do we. The foundation was simply a vehicle for dirty oil companies to carry out their dirty business.

Bullock’s representatives said that the New Orleans resident will continue to “continue to pursue opportunities that will bring awareness and support to the plight of the Gulf region.”

But we hope it will be with an honest organization this time. Not a greenwasher.