Little Green Myths Issue #3
Marcus Griswold, PhD (he/him)
Technology to build bridges across disparate sectors and communities #community #AI #equity #justice
Welcome to Issue 3 of Little Green Myths where we share India's new greenwashing policy, green financing principles from the International Chamber of Commerce, and greenwashing complaints against UNEP, WisdomTree, Quantas, Shell and BlackRock. Join our email list or visit Little Green Myths for more news and analysis.
India Update Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Greenwashing or Misleading Environmental Claims 2024
The Guidelines apply on all environmental claims made by a manufacturer, service provider or trader whose goods, products or services are the subject of an advertisement. What's missing is that companies can use different sustainability standards and messaging in different regions, which can contribute to greenwashing.
They prohibit using technical terms like Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Greenhouse Gas Emission and Ecological Footprint, and encourage consumer-friendly language to explain the meaning or implication of technical terms.
They also prohibit vague terminology such as green, eco-friendly, good for the planet, natural, organic, or carbn-neutral without substantiated evidence.
Moreover, all environmental claims shall be supported by easily accessible and verifiable evidence based on independent studies or third-party certification.
The guidelines make it mandatory to disclose all material information in the relevant advertisement either by inserting a QR code or URL or any such technology or digital medium.
It also underlines that disclosures shall not mean selective data from any research by highlighting only favorable observations while obscuring others that are not so. More importantly, the disclosures shall specify whether they refer to the goods as a whole or a part of it.
International Chamber of Commerce Releases Principles for Green Trade Finance to Combat Greenwashing
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) launched its Principles for Green Trade Finance (PGTF) at Sibos 2024 in Beijing. Provide feedback: Participate in the PGTF survey to share your insights.
Green Trade Finance refers to Trade Finance products designed exclusively to finance or mitigate financial risk from activities where the Use of Proceeds is clearly and verifiably allocated to green purposes, or, where the purpose is not known, to green goods.
The PGTF consist of four key pillars: Use of Proceeds, evidencing, safeguarding and standardisation, and reporting.
Use of Proceeds can be assessed through two lenses in the PGTF: purpose and goods. When the purpose of the Trade Finance product is known or can be evidenced, for it to be considered GTF, it must align to or support a green activity. In cases where only the good is known, the good itself must be aligned with or support a green activity to be considered green Trade Finance. Where users cannot directly infer the sustainability of the purpose or goods, it must be evidenced as sustainable and pass Do No Significant Harm checks.
Example purposes include:
Evidencing requires meeting the five characteristics:
Safeguarding is highlighted as important for high-risk transactions that can be associated with specific industries, geographies, or client profiles such as fossil fuels, textiles manufacturing, and mining. ICC recommends methodologies such as Equator Principles, EU Taxonomy DNSH, IFC Performance Standards, and local market regulations.
Standardisation & Reporting and disclosure practices are required to ensure transparency and comparability of sustainability assessments where the borrower/ client has the responsibility of reporting and the user, typically a bank, has the responsibility of to ensure that reporting guidelines are met.
Shell Campaign Receives More Than 70 Complaints for Greenwashing
We've talked about the role of the advertising industry in greenwashing. According to Adweek, more than 70 people have filed complaints with ad watchdog the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority claiming a recent Shell ad is guilty of greenwashing.
The TV ad, part of a years-long strategy and campaign called “Powering Progress,” was created by creative agency VML, whose work for the oil firm has previously come under fire from the ASA. These recent complaints argue that the ad gives a misleading impression of Shell’s environmental impact, the ASA said.
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Qantas Accused of Greenwashing
Climate Integrity filed a complaint against Qantas over greenwashing to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. The complaint focuses on its ‘fly carbon neutral’ product, promotion of ‘sustainable aviation fuels’ and the credibility of the company’s net zero transition, highlighting its lack of clear targets and credible transition strategies.
WisdomTree Pays $4 Million Over SEC 'Greenwashing' Charges
New York-based investment adviser WisdomTree Asset Management agreed to pay $4 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charges it misleadingly marketed three funds as having an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment strategy.
“At a fundamental level, the federal securities laws enforce a straightforward proposition: investment advisers must do what they say and say what they do,” said Sanjay Wadhwa, Acting Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement
From March 2020 until November 2022, WisdomTree said three exchange-traded funds did not invest in fossil fuel and tobacco companies, but the SEC found the funds in fact invested in companies that were involved in coal mining and transportation, natural gas extraction and distribution, and retail sales of tobacco products.
WisdomTree used data from third-party vendors that did not screen out all companies involved in fossil fuel and tobacco-related activities, the SEC found.
Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures Under Scrutiny for Greenwashing
A global group of NGOs and rights holders — including Rainforest Action Network, Third World Network, the Forests & Finance coalition, Indigenous Environmental Network, WECAN, Bank Track, Global Forest Coalition, Friends of the Earth International and other NGOs — have filed a complaint with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) over its support of the controversial Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD).
The complaint alleges that UNEP breached its own policies on environmental defenders, gender and access to information. UNEP is a co-founder and ongoing promoter of the TNFD.
The TNFD is a voluntary initiative on business self-reporting on biodiversity. Its decision-making body is a task force composed entirely of corporations.
The complaint notes that at least 45% of the 40 corporate groups represented on the TNFD taskforce face serious environmental and human rights concerns. This includes current legal cases, ongoing complaints, exclusions by investors, persistent environmental violations or other controversies.
“The mining giant Vale has devastated lives, created polluted wastelands and caused hundreds of deaths. Communities have been fighting for justice for years. A TNFD report does nothing for these communities. It provides a veneer of respectability when it’s clear no respectable person should have anything to do with this company.”? - Izabely Miranda, Executive Secretariat of the?Movement for Popular Sovereignty in Mining
Greenwashing Complaint Filed Against BlackRock
ClientEarth has filed a letter of complaint against investment giant BlackRock to the to the French financial regulator - the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), accusing the firm of greenwashing.
They believe that BlackRock is greenwashing – investment funds the company is calling 'sustainable' really aren’t. BlackRock manages hundreds of investment funds in its portfolio, and a segment of these are marketed as “sustainable”. However, many of these “sustainable” funds have invested over a billion in fossil fuel companies, the vast majority of which are developing new projects or capacity. This includes the likes of TotalEnergies, Shell, BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips and Equinor.
ClientEarth wants BlackRock itself to either change the language it uses when marketing its investments, or to reallocate its 'sustainable' fund portfolios so that its investments are consistent with how it presents these funds to the public.
Sustainability Product Development Professional. Changing the way we think about consumption & production one brand at a time.
5 个月Very informative