Greenwashing Debunkers Club

Julio F. Campos Originally published in 2018 Recently  Ambev presented its product AMA, which is nothing more than bottled water with a sustainability appeal based on the proposal to donate 100% of its profit from the product sale as a Cause Marketing approach (How Cause Marketing is another way to divert attention to the real problem of consumerism and its hidden costs, as keep consumers consuming or “pretending” to aid to solve a problem created by the market itself, won’t be discussed here). What will be discussed is: a) does a company such as Ambev needs to create a new product to present itself as sustainable?; b) how sustainable it really is when it comes to water, probably the most valuable natural resource today? AMA As stated AMA is a brand of bottled water which has 100% of its profit donated to a program aimed to deliver water to isolated communities in Brazil. With a US$0.54 / 500 ml price tag, it fits within market range for bottled waters.  ...

Julio F. Campos Disposable products such as plates, cups, and cutlery have been sold due to its practicality as a use-and-dispose option to doing the dishes. Although the idea was born back in 1908 to avoid the disease dissemination in hospitals due to sharing common recipients, it was after World War II and the development of the plastic industry that the disposable products reached the general public. Originally used for packaging, it was not long that the disposability concept reached other daily used products as we know today. In a world where, unfortunately, the time has become a most valuable commodity, the single-use idea was easy to sell, fastly getting public acceptance. It was not only until the recent years that the problem of such "practicality" has become known by the public. Although not new for environmental scientists, the plastic problem got popular worldwide attention after the media in recent years exposed the Great Pacific Garbage Patches (...

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. ...

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...