Greenwashing Debunkers Club

Julio F. Campos Recently I was asked about which environmental friendly technologies or products we need to invent for a more sustainable society . Although a simple question, with a simple answer but complex explanation, it is indeed the single most important question that one could ask. The answer is plain simple: none. The reason behind both the question and the answer, however, demands a not so simple explanation.   Let's start with the question that is the root of what was asked:    Why do we need more technology? The concept that the technology development could improve human society development was introduced in the first two decades of the twentieth century and later used to describe the works of the economist Thorstein Bunde Veblen.   Its idea was resumed by the engineer William H. Smyth with the introduction of the technocracy concept, which was could be resume to  "the rule of the people made effective through the agency of their servants, the scient

Julio F. Campos After my last post , I received a most interesting reader comment about why everything about sustainability is so complicated and formal. As an example, the reader presented the example do Stephen Hawking, (hence the post title), to which I could add an enormous list of other scientists that are able to translate their most complicated researches into easy to understand way for the scientific illiterate community. However, the problem is that being a multidisciplinary field, sustainability demands the explanation of a series of concepts from a large number of scientific fields. Which is time-consuming when considered the vast range of knowledge levels of the audience. It's not impossible though. Paradoxically sustainability, or better, what to do to be sustainable can actually be put through only two sentences. Here they are: To explain sustainability to corporations: "There is no such thing as sustainable growth" To explaining sustaina

Julio F. Campos In this article, I will discuss what qualities a professional need to work with sustainability. As a quick internet search results in a fair amount of similar texts, I decided to approach the topic through another bias. Easily someone will find recommendations on the profile considered ideal for acting in sustainability, however, this profile is the profile considered ideal by the corporate market. For this and other reasons, I will not address the profile of the corporate "sustainability" professional. I will not make a comparison between this professional and the profile sought by the market, a quick search on the internet allows to locate the latter. I leave it to the reader to make this self-critical analysis. I often see new graduates in various environmental areas unsatisfied with their jobs because they can not execute the proposals they know to be necessary, having to shape themselves to the needs of the company and not to sustainability.

Major household brands are selling everyday grocery staples containing palm oil produced using child labour, Amnesty International has claimed. From Josie Clarke, The Independent Online: Amnesty International report finds manufacturers using oil from Singapore-based company

Hugo Penteado I did not even wanted to participate in 2017. I do not know who chose the unfortunate 360-degree term for the conference, but it's perfect, the conference made it clear that we spin, spin, spin and never advance. In fact, we are much worse than when this whole movement began 20 years ago. Sustainability that does not change anything is worse than not doing any sustainability, just because it creates a sense that something is being done. It is not. The sustainability trophies continue to be sewage in cities, dumps, Vale disaster in Minas, Gulf of Mexico disaster, Alberta, deforestation for monoculture, large-scale agrochemicals decimating biodiversity and insects indispensable to life, accelerated climate change, extreme concentration and uncontrolled income and wealth, uninterrupted pollution, extinction of accelerated life, etc. There is not a single good indication in all this, despite so much conference and beliefs. In general, the lectures were empty, wit

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