Greenwashing Debunkers Club

Julio F. Campos Since 1972 the world is discussing the environmental issues. Why are we still struggling with the same problems? Why any palpable solution has yet to be implemented? Besides all propaganda by sustainable corporation actions, where are the results? Whit all accumulated knowledge, why isn’t the society moving towards a sustainable way to be? Those are inconvenient questions that hide an inconvenient truth.  In this article the underlying reason will be presented, plain and simple, taking the reader to visit the other side of the sustainability. When dealing with the environment and sustainable development issues and concerns in our lives, those who are worried about the current socio-environmental situation of the planet are increasingly uncomfortable with the position of the self-proclaimed "sustainability professionals". “Why those professionals responsible to implement de needed sustainability are doing it so slowly?” To answers that question an

Julio F. Campos Corporations are based on three pillars when presenting their solutions aiming at achieving sustainability: Increase efficiency and use of new technologies; Recycling of waste for reuse and; Change in the production process for the use of renewable and clean sources. Although corporations depend on these approaches to maintain their financial health in the face of an increasing demand for sustainability, we will see that from the environmental and social point of view, these solutions can often be mere palliatives and can not be sustainable if there is, in fact, no reduction in exploitation resources. Increase Efficiency Paradox William Stanley Jevons, in 1865, as postulated in "The Question of Coal," observed that as less coal was used to produce a single product, due to the increase in the efficiency of its use, the surplus coal allowed the expansion the production of that particular product, or other products, with lower prod

Julio F. Campos The Jevons' Paradox has been focus of attention in recent years due to its apparent conflict with eco-efficiency concept and as consequence has generated distinct reactions against it, and for it. The paradox is crucial when we face a corporation advertising of a more efficient process,  energy efficient products , sustainable use of energy or resources. It is, as we will see, also the first consideration that must be made when we ask " how can we be more sustainable". Here it is presented why that the idea that Jevons' Paradox is only related to energy is a misunderstanding, since the paradox wasn’t postulated referencing to the energy use but to the use of energetic resources, coal in the case. As postulated by Jevons in 1865 book “The Coal Question”: “ Whatever, therefore, conduces to increase the efficiency of coal, and to diminish the cost of its use, directly tends to augment the value of the steam-engine, and to enlarge the

Julio F. Campos Bioplastics have occupied a prominent place in the petrochemical industry as the solution to the problem of dependence on fossil fuels. Moreover, the strong environmental appeal due to its natural renewable origin makes it the main product in the sustainability policy debate. Its Life Cicle Analysis, however, shows that the truth is just the opposite. Their production demands uniformity of raw material, which can only be obtained (to meet the market demand) through large scale monocultures, which are responsible for their implementation, among other impacts, for the extinction of local biodiversity (irreversible), To which it only increases as demand for productive area increases. It can be argued that waste or by-products from agricultural processes are used, and therefore no significant impact is added to the stage of production of the raw material. It is important to remember that both the gasoline was waste discarded from the production of kerosene unti