The Beach Clean-Up Trap

“As a testament to our commitment to maintaining a clean environment, we have organized a beach clean-up day, where our team had the chance to contribute to our environmental targets.”

“In support of our sustainability mission, we organized a beach clean-up event, allowing our team to actively participate in meeting our eco-friendly goals.”

“Demonstrating our environmental stewardship, we arranged a beach clean-up initiative where our team contributed to the achievement of our sustainability objectives.”

No, this is not a free LinkedIn SMM template. But I bet these phrases sound familiar. Because they are. You have seen them while scrolling through your LinkedIn feed, or maybe something along these lines. Especially now as the global regulatory landscape is growing further towards ESG integration with the EU adopting the ESRS, new TNFD standards developed, and COP approaching.

Companies that had previously disregarded sustainability and ESG as “unnecessary” are now turning to “quick wins” and “low-hanging fruits” to testify, rectify, solidify, fortify, and ratify their commitment to the global climate agenda. Some of the most notable examples of these “impactful green testaments” are tree-planting activities, LED lights in the office, and in some particularly proactive cases even a newly designed page on their website purely dedicated to a “statement on sustainability”. But of course, anyone who’s ever lived in a city anywhere near a body of water will tell you that a company that hasn’t done a beach clean-up is not a company at all. In fact, are you even a legally registered entity if you haven’t arranged a bus to take your team to a secluded shore, given them cleaning gloves and oversized plastic bags, and told them to pick up trash for half a day without providing them with water and lunch, because “that’s more plastic waste” and “it wasn’t in the budget”?

Now, don’t get me wrong, beach clean-ups can be a wonderful initiative when done right. They can serve as a team-building opportunity with competitions and prizes, while also having a genuinely positive impact on the environment. Not only are you cleaning up some of the (many, many tons of) trash, but you are also raising awareness on a real, critical issue, which is where the real impact of these initiatives lies.

However (and it wouldn’t be a serious LinkedIn article if there wasn’t a ‘however’) in most cases beach clean-ups are nothing but a greenwashing practice, of which we have had one too many. Now, before diving into the ‘why’, let me explain what even is greenwashing (because most of the people who will read this are my supportive friends, and most of them are not in this field of practice. Also, hi mom!).

Greenwashing?

Greenwashing is when a company says they care about sustainability when they actually really don’t care about sustainability. Like that situationship you had with someone who told you they liked you but just not enough to actually make an effort. Or when you applied for that job saying how much you cared about their company mission, when in reality the entire application package was prepared by ChatGPT. So does a company do “just enough” to look like they care about the future of the planet without having to utilize much or even any of their resources.

Sticking a plaster over an open wound

So now that we are in the clear over what greenwashing is, let’s dive into why beach clean-ups are often nothing but. In most cases beach clean-ups have little to no impact on the issue of ocean pollution. When you have a broken bone, you don’t treat the redness of your skin, you treat the bone fracture. So are beach clean-ups only a treatment of a symptom, not the root cause.

It is estimated that anywhere between 8 to 12 million metric tons of plastic are thrown into the ocean every year. On average, a local beach clean-up can collect between 50 to 500 pounds (22 to 220 kg). By rough estimates, it would take around 1.1 billion beach clean-up events to clean all the trash from the ocean. To put it into perspective even further, 1.1 billion beach clean-up days is over 3 million years of daily beach clean-ups. So, unless the entire global population quits their jobs and focuses on daily beach clean-ups for millions of generations down the road, we are not very likely to succeed in this endeavor. And considering we still haven’t agreed on the fact that climate is changing, I doubt we are going to agree on this initiative either.

Another problem with beach clean-ups is that it is a temporary solution. Unless your whole team is designated to come clean the beach every day, the trash is likely to be brought back to the shore by the current. It will take a systemic approach, spanning regular cleaning and regulatory changes with regard to pollution. For example, organizations like the Surfrider Foundation report significant cleanups with over 225,000 pounds of trash removed in 2023 alone, while the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup reports that over 20 million pounds (9,000 metric tons). It is possible to make an impact through beach clean-ups, but only when that is your primary focus area.

So now what?

So now that we have identified that most companies reporting on their yearly half-day beach clean-up events are just an attempt to convince the public that they definitely, absolutely, wholeheartedly, very much care about the environment (but they are just not ready to commit), we can move on to the next, and the final part of this essay.

First of all, recognize the problem with pollution. Ocean pollution is a very real and a very critical issue that threatens life as we know it by endangering marine life, disrupting the ecosystem balance, posing risks to human health, and negatively impacting those economies dependent on fisheries and marine/coastal tourism. If we want to make a change, a one-off event is not going to cut it, we must approach it systemically and strategically.

Then, recognize the problem with greenwashing. If we allow companies to claim they are environmentally friendly without showing us any tangible commitments to the cause, we are essentially enabling greenwashing. Demand real and impactful actions that demonstrate true commitment.

Lastly, if your company invites you over for a beach clean-up without offering free lunch, you now have a full justification for refusing to join. You are welcome.