“This issue with UNICEF completely undermines all of those years of hard work, working with children, it’s sending out a double message that you have this very well-known sports star who everyone loves and respects and is, on one hand, promoting the very good work of UNICEF and on the other hand he’s promoting Texaco’s greenwashing,” Mr Roche added.
SOURCE: Limerick Leader
ISSUE 37: Autumn 2023
Awash in Greenwash
By Peadar King, Colm Regan and Tom Roche
“Everything clean can be soiled and everything beautiful can be corrupted. There’s no better example for it than greenwashing” (Kippar, 2022).
The colour green
Green is synonymous with Ireland, or so we like to think. We play in green. The boys in green. And now the girls in green. We market in green. Origin Green is the Bord Bia sustainability programme (Bord Bia, 2023). We schmooze in green. Every year at the seat of the United States’ (US) government in the White House on St. Patrick’s Day. And now we wash in green. Green washing. Every day we witness corporate Ireland’s greenwashing agenda (Robinson, 2022). Greenwashing that, for the most part, goes unchallenged in the Irish media. A greenwashing that is facilitated, in the case of one fossil fuel company, Texaco, by a media ‘personality’ and former Irish rugby international.
Alongside Texaco, [owned by Chevron] other household names – BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, Circle K and CERTA are involved. It’s not just the oil industry that is awash with greenwashing. IKEA, the Swedish multinational conglomerate furniture company, the 90 per cent Coca-Cola-owned Innocent drinks company, the Canadian coffee company Keurig. The fast-fashion Swedish H&M company, the US cleaning product company Windex, the Irish airline Ryanair, the US plastics company Hefty, the London-headquartered Unilever company. The Filipino-based Monde Nissin food company. The British-based HSBC banking and financial services company. The Swiss-based Nestlé food company. The US-based Starbucks coffee houses. The German car company Volkswagen. The US-based Apple company (Ibid.).