Faced with consumer pressure amid the climate crisis, multinationals increasingly vaunt their commitment to “carbon neutrality”. But can we believe their claims of ‘net zero’ or is this simply greenwashing?
Many of these large companies rely on carbon offsetting to burnish their green credentials, financing ‘ecological’ projects via carbon credits rather than reducing emissions. The most popular projects are tree plantations. A huge business has emerged around buying and selling these credits. Companies connect giant corporations, which might be engaged in mining or petrochemicals, with reforestation projects around the world. The intermediary companies then disperse the funds and take a commission.
But to maximise profits, the intermediaries often focus on the simplest investments, those that are inexpensive and easy to implement. For example, planting trees, without checking on what happens to the site in future. We visit local sites and find that trees supposedly planted to offset carbon have since been cleared, felled and burned for fuel, or to free up land for farming. Very often these carbon offset projects are not effective or may even have a negative impact on the environment and local populations.
Meanwhile, we investigate the new oil wells being drilled by Total Energies in one of Uganda’s biggest national parks, a project which will release 34 million tonnes of CO2 per year into the atmosphere, as well as destroying local people’s livelihoods and contaminating local sources of clean drinking water. We investigate the inconsistencies in Total’s publicity campaign which promotes the benefits to wildlife and local people, and uncover corruption, and potentially misleading information.
Another example is Nespresso, an offset champion who has pledged that “every cup of coffee will be carbon neutral by 2022”. We investigate the validity of their claims.