greenwashing, a book to decipher a strategy with perverse effects
“Greenwashing” is the title of a book published by researchers from Atécopol, a group that works on the ecological question. This “manual for cleaning up public debate” provides valuable keys to understanding. Laure Teulières, one of its authors, answers our questions.
Global warming is a decisive issue, a priority for an increasing number of people, if not politicians. To clarify the debate on the subject and make it accessible, researchers from Atécopol have just published “Greenwashing”, manual to decontaminate the public debate“.
“Greenwashing” stands for greenwashing, a marketing technique used by organizations to suggest or express a virtuous ecological positioning when in practice they contribute to polluting the environment.
Laure Teulières, lecturer in contemporary history at the University of Toulouse Jean-Jaurès, participated in its writing. Thanks to the prisms of many researchers, it makes it possible to understand where the debate on ecology is biased and to glimpse the real solutions to be implemented urgently on the societal level.
It is increasingly known that the ecological issue is absolutely crucial, suddenly it is more and more seized in the public debate by social actors of all types, from the State to economic actors through the civil society, with proposals to deal with the situation.
However, it seems to us that there are still many elements that are similar to greenwashing. By giving this word a somewhat extensive meaning… It’s not just a somewhat cynical communications operation to try to give yourself a green image. What we are trying to show is that greenwashing, in the broader sense, is in fact a bad way of responding to the ecological challenge and that it is extremely present in society.
It is present for various reasons which obviously range from defenses of private interests, of the corporatist type, even as smoke-out strategies to much larger things which are a bad way to raise the stakes. And therefore, of course, to answer them. See, too, a general tendency of our society to mask the reality of the necessary transformations, either because we don’t really want to face them… it’s almost even a cultural trait. But also because our society is organized, qualified by its socio-economic form by a certain number of logics which prevent us from correctly dealing with the ecological question. a question which is nevertheless crucial.
To give an idea of the three points which seem essential to us, it is economism: the primacy of a short-sighted economistic vision which does not take into account the environmental dimension which is the substrate of our societies and their economic development. .
Second, techno-solutionism. And that is constant, especially in the media, without prosecuting the media which today also try to participate in raising the alarm, making these subjects more intelligible. But often we announce good news of a technological solution that will solve such and such an issue. Sometimes it’s just, they are interesting solutions. But if they are not redesigned in a global transformation, there can be rebound effects and anyway, it is never a miracle solution.
Third, thinking in silos, that is to say that we have big announcements such as “aviation will decarbonize”, “cement works will decarbonize”, this-that will decarbonize” and in truth , when you put everything end to end, you realize that it’s not enough. A sector cannot take all the resources for decarbonization, clean energy to the detriment of others. You need to think globally and there, that’s always reveals a much deeper change in model orientation with, at its heart, sobriety.
There are plenty of solutions to implement, including technological solutions. But, without sobriety, without a base of sobriety, it will never work. Scientifically, we are justified in saying so because the ecological problem is multi-factorial, multi-dimensional. It’s not just the issue of climate and energy. there is also soil fertility, erosion, pollution which turns into widespread contamination if we think of plastic, there is biodiversity which is a huge issue.
So it’s the generality of our uses and our relationship to nature that poses a problem. Why ? Because our societies are in growth dynamics that rely on predation and increased use of resources.
So, even if we put in place a certain number of transformations towards clean energies, less impacting technologies, etc., if we don’t resolve the rebound effect, we shift the stakes. This is a known phenomenon in science. We solve a problem somewhere, but we create another one or we multiply the effect somewhere else.
Very simply, for example, we know that the essential energy transition to get out of fossil fuels will generate a demand for minerals for new technologies, whether solar, obviously nuclear with uranium or wind turbines, and that creates other damage.
And quite simply, we see that there is no miracle energy. That is to say that if we remain with colossal energy needs, unless we cover our soil with solar panels, on a very few means to produce as much.
When we say sobriety, everyone can understand that it’s going to be hard. There is already a whole social category which is struggling to make ends meet, which already has the impression of being excluded from consumption… This is where we, even if we are not prescribers policies, we tell ourselves that for it to pass, we have to ask ourselves political questions, namely: where we are going to carry the burden and how we are going to distribute the uses and the financial burden that it may represent.
So inevitably it requires rethinking our social model so that it is not an additional factor of exclusion. But maybe if we want to be optimistic, resilient and inclusive in a more egalitarian society. Values of greater equality, justice and inclusion are essential to a successful transition.
The solutions, there are. The problem is that they are complicated to implement because they require major changes. So our book is intended to make people aware, and we hope also to opinion leaders such as the media, that we now have to be consistent in the way we approach these problems. We need to share the understanding of the scope of what needs to be implemented.
The people must grasp the understanding of the issues so that it can have weight on all sides. Of course the political scale is important, but at the point where we are, it will only happen if, on all sides, in professional circles, at home in teaching, research, we work on it, but that everyone in their field, try to weigh in to say: but be careful, we have to get out of this “business as usual” vision, today we only have a few years left to take a major turn.