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Greenwash: The Reality Behind Corporate Environmentalism

Jed Greer

4.25 · Rating details · 12 ratings · 3 reviews

In recent years, transnational corporations (TNCs) have been greenwashing their dismal environmental performance by posing as friends of the environment. This new book provides an overview of TNCs in the global economy and of their impacts on the global environment. It gives a general introduction to greenwashing and Provides profiles of the environmental claims of 20 glob ...more

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Paperback, 258 pages

Published February 1st 1997 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

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Sep 27, 2011 Writer Righter rated it really liked it

Shelves: environment

Good book. Revealing truism of corporate so-called environmentalism. So sad to know that these giants are automatically protected by government. E.g. Shell

Those involved in greenwash are (according to this book):
1. Royal Dutch/Shell Group
2. Mobil Corp.
3. Dow Chemical Co.
4. DuPont De Nemours & Co.
5. Solvay & CIE S.A
6. Imperial Chemical Industries PLC & Zeneca Group PLC
7. Rhone-Poulenc S.A.
8. Norsk Hydro
9. Sandoz Ltd
10. Monsanto Corp.
11. Ciba Ltd
12. General Motors Corp.
13. Aluminum Company of Amer ...more

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Nov 21, 2020 Ptrav rated it liked it

Shelves: technology, peak-oil

The book is surely well-researched, but I cannot give the author a 5-star score because it is missing the analysis.

The fundamental issue is not HOW a particular beer-maker makes his business look greener than it is, but WHY. It is less important to know WHICH particular oil company greenwash, but WHY all so many of them are doing this. Not WHY Shell is greenwashing but why the Chinese CNOC does not see the need for greenwash. The book contains no hypothesis and even no attempt to look for it. Th The book is surely well-researched, but I cannot give the author a 5-star score because it is missing the analysis.

The fundamental issue is not HOW a particular beer-maker makes his business look greener than it is, but WHY. It is less important to know WHICH particular oil company greenwash, but WHY all so many of them are doing this. Not WHY Shell is greenwashing but why the Chinese CNOC does not see the need for greenwash. The book contains no hypothesis and even no attempt to look for it. The closest to a hypothesis is that the upper management are all (yes, every single one!) hypocrites and misanthropes, which is difficult to believe.

On the page 144, the book cites Lord Christopher Monckton, unfortunately not bothering to check the source and cutting the statement short. I take freedom to put the original verbatim quote here. The source is "Great Is Truth, and Mighty Above All Things" by Lord Christopher Monckton, March 12, 2009 (https://www.heartland.org/publication...

[Quote] In one recent survey, “global warming” came at the very bottom of a list of political and environmental concerns, immediately behind the need to clean up dog-poop on the streets. Why? Because dog-poop is a real environmental problem. “Global warming” is not. The correct policy response to the non-problem of climate change is to have the courage to do nothing. [Unquote] In the book under review only the last sentence was presented.

You may not like Lord Monckton; you may disagree on his views, but he has a point. The humans on this planet have a lot to do. Poverty elimination is priority one. Effective and painless cancer treatment is perhaps number two. Universal primary education is number three. How about child labour? Slave labour? Human trafficking? City slums? Thermonuclear reactors? Space exploration? Leprosy elimination? Free and safe family planning? And, indeed, brewing good beer, and not a common bottlepiss.

And the global warming? On the global priorities list it would be lucky to make above the 300-th position. Not in China, not in India, not in the United States, not in Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh.

My counter-hypothesis is that the Western companies universally greenwash not because they are all hypocrites and misanthropes, but because they rather spend several million on green(ish) BS than much more on environauts like Greta Thunberg. Just business, nothing personal. The only other option is simply go out of business. ...more

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Nov 27, 2012 Janelle rated it it was amazing

This is one of those books that educate and activate. There should be action as an individual after reading this, or else it would defeat the purpose why it was written in the first place.

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