If you were the chief executive of an oil company hoping to defend your business against environmental campaigners, there are several ways you might go about it. The most direct approach, as adopted by ExxonMobil, would be to fund groups that claim climate change isn鈥檛 happening and urge the White House to remove the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
But you wouldn鈥檛 do this if you had any sense: Exxon鈥檚 tactics, while successful in the short term, have backfired spectacularly, confirming many people鈥檚 impressions that the oil industry is a threat to life on Earth. If you were smart, you would follow BP and Shell鈥檚 tactics. Rather than denying that climate change is happening, they have repositioned themselves as friends of the environment. Their new advertisements (including ones in this magazine) seek to persuade us that they have left the bad old days behind.
They do this by emphasising their investments in low-carbon energy: wind, solar and hydrogen. BP is now promoting carbon offset schemes, assuring its customers that 鈥渋t is now possible to drive in neutral鈥�. Other companies have followed suit. Total promotes its investments in wind power and biofuels, while Chevron claims that by exploiting Canada鈥檚 tar sands it is saving the world from another problem: the threat that global oil production will soon peak.
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Have they left the bad old days behind? Quite the opposite. By repositioning themselves in this way as environmentally responsible, I believe these companies have become far more dangerous than ExxonMobil. They have created the impression that a large and growing oil industry is compatible with preventing runaway climate change. BP in particular now looks more like an environmental pressure group than an oil company.
The whole tenor of these companies鈥� adverts, like BP鈥檚 slogan 鈥淏eyond petroleum鈥�, is misleading. It overlooks the fact that an oil company鈥檚 share price depends on the current and future value of its assets, and to sustain this value it will aim to replace whatever oil it produces with new discoveries and production. While Shell is struggling to keep up, BP has so far managed to meet this target. In other words, it will continue in the future to pump as much oil as it does today, regardless of what it spends on alternative technologies.
鈥淥il firms aim to pump as much oil in future as today, however much they spend on alternative technologies鈥�
Indeed, BP鈥檚 carbon offset campaign is designed to allow sales of oil products to increase, persuading customers that they can buy them with a clear conscience. But growing oil sales are impossible to reconcile with action on climate change, however many biodigesters and low-energy light bulbs are installed to mop up their effects. The adverts, in other words, all appear to be examples of greenwash: companies attempting to distract attention from the environmental impacts of their activities.
It is not just oil companies that are guilty of this. Car manufacturers have started to join in. Volkswagen has recently been promoting its Golf GT with the slogan 鈥淗igh performance. Low emissions鈥�. Yet read the small print and you鈥檒l find that the GT produces 175 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre, compared with the national average for new cars in the UK of 170 grams.
Similarly, Toyota鈥檚 new adverts are headlined 鈥渁im: zero emissions鈥� and claim that the company is seeking to preserve 鈥渢he delicate balance between man and nature鈥�. This is news to anyone who has bought one of its planet-eating 4脳4s. Even its famously efficient hybrid, the Prius, is less impressive than the ads suggest. On the highway it manages, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, 51 miles per gallon. In 1983, the standard Peugeot 205 made 72.
I have been unable to find any major company whose green claims stand up to scrutiny. The big firm with the best environmental reputation in the UK is the home improvement retailer B&Q. It has recently been promoting solar panels and micro wind turbines, and maintains that 鈥渆nvironmental and ethical responsibility鈥� is an integral part of the way we think about ourselves and our business鈥�. This is hard to reconcile with its promotions this summer. It knocked 15 per cent off the price of patio heaters and 20 per cent off air-conditioning units, helping customers to save money while frying the planet. It sells a huge range of light bulbs, but few are energy-efficient.
There鈥檚 nothing wrong with companies advertising their green credentials. If these are exaggerated, however, busy consumers have no means of distinguishing between good firms and bad ones, and are easily led into doing things they believe are helping the environment but in fact are damaging it. The examples I have given suggest that we need stiffer rules about the green claims made in advertisements, as well as mandatory 鈥渟ustainability鈥� standards. Until then, I would advise you not to believe anything a company tells you about its environmental performance.
