{"id":34656,"date":"2022-11-09T05:55:30","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T00:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=34656"},"modified":"2025-04-20T16:00:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T10:30:20","slug":"zero-tolerance-for-greenwashing-un-chief-guterres-warns-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/zero-tolerance-for-greenwashing-un-chief-guterres-warns-companies\/","title":{"rendered":"Zero Tolerance for Greenwashing, Un Chief Guterres Warns Companies"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Greenwashing \u2013 About, examples, reasons for its prevalence, way forward<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Why in news<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned companies and other non-state entities pursuing net-zero goals to not indulge in greenwashing.<\/li>\n<li>He made those remarks wile launching the report of an expert group on the issue of greenwashing.\n<ul>\n<li>The expert group was formed last year to suggest measures to prevent greenwashing by private corporations and other non-state actors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Greenwashing<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It refers to a range of activities that companies or even countries indulge in to\u00a0present misleading or dubious claims about their climate action.<\/li>\n<li>There is a growing tendency among firms &amp; governments to mark all kinds of activities as climate-friendly. Many of these claims are unverifiable, misleading, or dubious.<\/li>\n<li>While they help in boosting the image of the entity, sometimes even helping them garner benefits, they do nothing in the fight against climate change.<\/li>\n<li>It presents a false picture of the progress being made on the climate change front, thereby pushing the world towards disaster, while at the same time rewarding entities for irresponsible behaviour.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Examples of greenwashing<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Developed countries are often accused of greenwashing their normal business investments in developing countries, or their bilateral aid.\n<ul>\n<li>They often highlight climate co-benefits of these financial flows, sometimes with very little justification.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0Volkswagen scandal\u00a0was a case of greenwashing.\n<ul>\n<li>In this scandal, the German car company was found to have been cheating in emissions testing of its supposedly green diesel vehicles<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Several other multinational corporations, including oil giants like Shell, BP, and Coca Cola have faced accusations of greenwashing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why greenwashing is fairly widespread?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The processes and products that can potentially cut emissions are so many that it is practically impossible to monitor and verify all.<\/li>\n<li>There is lack of regulation and standardisation in most of these spaces.<\/li>\n<li>The processes, methodologies and institutions to measure, report, create standards, verify claims and grant certifications are still being set up.<\/li>\n<li>Also, large number of organisations have sprung up claiming expertise in these areas and offering their services for a fee.<\/li>\n<li>Many of these organisations lack integrity and robustness, but their services are still availed by corporations because it makes them look good.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Way forward:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>An expert group, in its report, recommended that corporations pursuing net zero targets:\n<ul>\n<li>must<strong>\u00a0not<\/strong>\u00a0be allowed to make fresh investments in fossil fuels,<\/li>\n<li>must be asked to present\u00a0short-term emission reduction goals\u00a0on the path to achieving net zero, and<\/li>\n<li>must bring an end to all activities that lead to deforestation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In addition, the corporations have been advised not to use offset mechanisms at the start of their journey to net-zero status.<\/li>\n<li>The expert group has also recommended the creation of regulatory structures and standards as soon as possible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned companies and other non-state entities pursuing net-zero goals to not indulge in \u201cgreenwashing\u201d.\n<ul>\n<li>This was the first official acknowledgement that unfair practices were widely being used to claim progress on climate action.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>UN Chief urged these entities to\u00a0upgrade their processes within a year\u00a0to show the actual results of their actions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Key highlights<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Carbon free commitment is increasing<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>A growing number of governments and non-state actors are pledging to be carbon-free \u2014 and that is good news.<\/li>\n<li>The problem is that the criteria and benchmarks for these net-zero commitments have varying levels of loopholes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Net zero commitment and greenwashing<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Net zero refers to a situation in which an organisation\u2019s, or a country\u2019s, total emissions are balanced by absorption or removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.<\/li>\n<li>Countries have also taken net-zero targets.\n<ul>\n<li>Most of the developed countries have promised to become net zero by 2050.<\/li>\n<li>China has a net zero target for 2060 while India has pledged to become net-zero by 2070.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>If greenwash premised upon low-quality net zero pledges is not addressed, it will undermine the efforts of genuine leaders, creating both confusion, cynicism and a failure to deliver urgent climate action.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Buying cheap carbon credits to fulfil net-zero targets<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>There is an increasing trend in which companies and other entities are buying \u201ccheap\u201d carbon credits to fulfil their net-zero targets.\n<ul>\n<li>The trade in carbon credits is a legitimate exercise and is officially encouraged.<\/li>\n<li>Countries or firms that reduce emissions beyond their mandate are granted carbon credits, which can then be bought for money by entities that need it to achieve their targets.<\/li>\n<li>There was a carbon market under the Kyoto Protocol, and a new one is being created under the Paris Agreement as well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>These cheap credits often lack integrity and do not represent actual reductions in emissions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greenwashing, also called &#8220;green sheen&#8221;, is a form of advertising in which green PR and green marketing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}