Don't Need to Greenwash Anymore

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Welcome to World Ocean Radio…

I’m Peter Neill, Founder of the World Ocean Observatory.

Over the past two decades, as international environmental awareness bloomed and grew, spreading the seeds of regulation, policy, law, and public engagement to fertile ground wherein the polluters – the oil-based producers of refinery and transportation emissions, the global pandemic of dissolving plastic, toxic manufacturing by-products, the resultant bio-diversity collapse, and political disruption—were confronted by public indignation and political support for strict new standards, prohibitions, court proceedings, and adverse public reputation to the point that some progress, measured by reversal and the emergence of alternatives, was made, providing new global consciousness, the revival of biodiversity and conservation protections, and a sense of hope that the era of accelerated industrial expansion and unrestrained consumption was recognized as a threat to quality of life and survivability and steps were taken.

A generation of environmental activists emerged, to protest, oppose, propose policy and law, and take the argument against historic exploitation of Nature into the legislative halls, courtrooms, changing communications formats and social media; indeed, the schools and universities, from the pulpits, and the places of civic protest and reform aspirations.

This counter-force was formidable and progress was measurable, in the air we breathe, the water we consume, the investments we make, and the progressive outcomes that suggested an exemplary success. The corporations changed their processes, their supplies, their packaging, their advertising, and their annual reports; appointed “chief sustainability officers,” and otherwise took up the good work of environmental protection – at least on the surface of things.

But all has not been what it seemed. In a recent post on The Daily Ocean Brief, journalist Andrew Lewin describes the unfolding of the “greenwashing” phenomenon, the investigation, revelation, and prosecution of some 400 plus companies worldwide that have been found wanting, indeed fraudulent, in their product claims, misrepresentations of content, deliberate mis-statements, false labeling, and deliberate, disingenuous compromise of Environmental Sustainability Standards (ESGs) intended to protect consumers from false claims and advertising resulting in a new phenomenon, corporate “green-hushing,” dropping ESG claims rather than risk litigation over claims they cannot prove.

Who would have thought otherwise? Of course, far worse is the overt disdain for this policy by politicians, often corrupted, who would reverse all this progress by open regress and the withdrawal of any and all laws to protect Nature, our land and water, from the worst, most destructive outcomes of unrestrained pollution. Ironically, the dishonesty of the past is overwhelmed by the honesty of the present, the overt subversion of any and all environmental protections, conservation, alternative non-polluting technology, and ancillary costs that restrict profit from the business of irresponsible consumption, regulatory control, and public defense.

No further need to greenwash or green hush; just license to incentivize the poison, liberate the public from sustainability and health protection, exhaust limited natural resource supply, and incentivize decline for everyone and everything once the last short-term profit, the last drop of value, has been withdrawn with no concern for the balance sheet of life.

It is ”back washing”, “black washing”, a kind of social death wish where everything Nature provides is placed willfully at risk of reduction to a global pit, to a sump of lies, to a sewer of unrepentant greed, and to certain decline.

It may be that not even the cleansing power of the ocean can rid us from this vice.

We are experiencing this outcome every day, in every way: in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, and the social conditions of incivility, injustice, inequity, and pain. It is eco-suicidal. Is it inevitable? What will it take?

We will discuss these issues, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio.

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