Greenwashing Debunkers Club

Julio F. Campos My last article about the major issue of corporate sustainability professionals raised an interesting set of comments, especially the negatives ones, which indicated to me that I have touched the right spot. Here are presented the reasons behind that article. As many people, ever since childhood it was my desire to work close to the environment. Being raised close to nature made it a mere consequence. Growing up I understood that the environment was threatened by those “evil” corporations whose main objective was to explore and profit, no matter the consequences. However, as I began to actually do research on the problem while obtaining my scientific degrees on the sustainability field, I realized that that was a naïve perception for those corporations are not the worst problem that one faces when trying to work for a more sustainable world. Those “evil” corporations are not the problem. The enemy within is. The enemy within is that group of profession

Julio F. Campos This article is dedicated to expose how the carbon credit market helps companies evade their responsibilities to the environment and the health of society in their environment. Nowadays when a corporation talks about environmental sustainability the first results presented is the reduction in carbon emissions. Although some of them achieve that reduction by moving to renewable sources but presenting only the results with higher reductions, not the whole life cycle, many use the carbon market to calculate their emissions reductions. The principle behind the carbon market is simple, the company A emits X tons of carbon, the company B grow biomass that sequesters that X tons, generating carbon credits. Company A buys company B carbon credits and neutralizes its carbon emissions. As exemplified by Dr. Katharine Hayhoe an interesting analogy to understand how this can be made is: Imagine that person A wants to loose weight and pays person B to go to

Julio F. Campos Since the invention of Bakelite in 1907 plastic residues or products has being cumulatively thrown into rivers, and consequently oceans.  The consequence is that today there is not a single beach in the world where plastic debris is not present. After the air pollution, this is probably our second global presence footprint.      For over a hundred year we are polluting the oceans, but the problem of the great garbage patches in Pacific hit the press and social media in the last few years the problem gained public attention. That it was discovered back in 1988 and we stood for years without caring about it is of little concern. The first large scale attempt to deal with the problem and try to remove the plastic was conceived by Boyan Slat back in 2011, who started a crowdfunding initiative and it is s yet on prototype testing phase, still years from being 24/7 effective on real open sea conditions. Due to lack of investment. As the subject got

Julio F. Campos The circular economy for some years has been emerging as an alternative proposal to the current production model being embraced by a growing number of governments and companies. Its concept is to introduce into the production system feedback mechanisms similar to those existing in natural systems, eliminating the linear explore-produce-discard characteristic in favor of a structure based on reuse and recycling cycles, thus reducing both the volume of discarded waste and the of exploited natural inputs. Basic model of the structure of the Circular Economy Encompassing different initiatives, such as cradle-to-cradle , biomimetics or industrial ecology , in this scenario the environment would cease to be a mere reservoir of resources/waste, but an adjunct to the economic process, providing proposals for the development of sustainable economic solutions. However, when we have in mind the finite characteristic of our planet resources, for the circular econ

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 Which careers will provide the best employability in the future? What should I choose to work with? What should I study? Those questions are getting more common on a daily basis as unemployment rates soar through every country in the world. Although unemployment is an increasing concern amongst the overall population its causes are raising governments concerns worldwide due to its potential catastrophic social and economical consequences and the fact that no economical model seems to be able to handle the problem. While many solutions are being proposed, from economic degrowth to less working hours, none have yet addressed the main problem behind the lack of available jobs. That problem lies at the population itself, or more precisely, the overpopulation problem. Independently of its causes, intrinsic population growth in underdeveloped countries or increase migration to developed countries, the constant population growth results in an increasing de

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

Sustainability roots are the words “ability” and “sustain”, therefore the ability to sustain. In the case of ecological sustainability, the ability to sustain a ecological system or social sustainability, as the ability to sustain a social system. The idea of sustainability has become over the years so disseminated through so many different areas and so little attention has been given to its real meaning that it is often confused with the traditional definition of sustainable development, i.e., use our resources without compromise the needs of future generations, which is the result of sustainability. To fully understand this “ability to sustain” it must be brought back some dimensions to the concept that are related to how long that ability can be maintained, how it is maintained   or lost, and the systemic configuration need for its existence. This paper brings back the sustainability concept to its more broad definition and some considerations on how the lack its c