100 points to know about...
Inclusive project management

Communication is an essential part of a company's activity; the communication department is often close to the executive bodies within a structure. Communication allows companies to present and promote their products, their activities and their identity to the public.

As we have seen, environmental issues and global warming are increasingly present in the public space and in the minds of citizens. It is therefore natural for companies to take up these issues, by which they are also concerned. However, communicating on these issues can carry risks: misleading advertising, implementation of bad practices, non-compliance with legislation, which can have a negative impact on the company and, more globally, on the environment.

In this lesson, we will discover what constitutes relevant communication on environmental and sustainable development issues. Let's start with some definitions.

Greenwashing: The practice of making an unsubstantiated or misleading claim about the environmental benefits of a product, service, technology or company practice, in order to appear more environmentally friendly than it really is or than competitors, and to attract the consumers and citizens.

Example: Indicating on the packaging of a bottle that it is made of cardboard when the inside is made of plastic.

Green marketing: The practice of using environment-related arguments in communication strategies in order to create a good public image and thus become more successful. Green marketing can be used to cover up a company's inconsistencies or inaction by giving a misleading image of environmental responsibility.

Example: The creation of a new responsible brand (clothes, food products, etc.) is green marketing. If the company that creates this brand is not itself responsible, this green marketing operation is therefore misleading and becomes greenwashing.

Some climate policy and climatology concepts are present in advertising since they appeared in laws and climate objectives and became argument of choice in communication campaigns. It is interesting to understand them to better appreciate the potential risks.

Carbon neutrality: The balance between the emission of carbon gases, generated by human activity, and the absorption of these same gases by the atmosphere (climatic neutrality takes into account all greenhouse gases). The difference between the gases emitted and those absorbed must therefore be equal to zero. The Paris agreements and the European climate law set the objective of carbon neutrality by 2050. Today, the preferred way for companies to achieve carbon neutrality is not to reduce emissions or to stop producing them (being carbon negative), but rather to compensate for the actual pollution by other means.

Carbon compensation: A strategy for achieving carbon neutrality. It involves implementing actions (planting trees, storing carbon) that counterbalance a company's GHG emissions. It is not about reducing a company's actual emissions but about financing projects that are supposed to reduce/prevent emissions elswhere. This strategy is criticized for the lack of real evidence of effectiveness and the distraction from useful actions that it entails, like directly reducing emissions.

Treewashing: An operation consisting in using carbon compensation practices to give oneself a good conscience, to avoid truly investing in the fight against global warming by relying on these false good solutions and to have a good image in the eyes of citizens and institutions.

Name and shame: The practice of exposing to the general public - via the media in particular - the bad practices of a company, whether they are unlawful or unethical, with the aim of informing citizens and pushing companies to change their behaviour.

To go further:

A WWF video explaining why using carbon compensation as a green argument is deceptive.