“The biggest risk to progress in responsible investment right now is greenwashing. It’s a bigger danger than skepticism, it’s a bigger danger than denialism. Greenwashing is so dangerous because it destroys trust.” (- Dan Mikulskis, below)
Declaring war on the most abundant, reliable, convenient energies has predictably brought forth gaming and hyperbole in the quest of corporations to be “woke,” yet serve consumers and stockholders.
Enter “greenwashing” by business firms, which Paul Watchman defined as including carbon offsets, carbon capture, distant promises, and fickle support for Net Zero and like programs.
The climate alarmists and forced energy transformationists are alarmed. The world is going the other way as evidenced by a global boom in oil, natural gas/LNG, and coal.
The ‘this might hurt a bit’ verdict from Dan Mikulskis follows:
Ok this might hurt a bit. But I think it needs to be said 👇
The biggest risk to progress in responsible investment right now is greenwashing. It’s a bigger danger than skepticism, it’s a bigger danger than denialism. Greenwashing is so dangerous because it destroys trust.
What is greenwashing? 2 types.
Type 1 is overpromising on claims of return, risk or impact when that’s not justified by evidence. Type 2 is about inflated claims on what an organisation is actually doing on responsible investing: saying great things when really it’s business as usual.
Greenwashing makes the job of every responsible investment professional trying to make an evidence-backed, balanced, and realistic case so much harder. We need the space and cover for a more realistic and balanced debate but the greenwash denies that, drowns it out.
Senior responsible investment professionals throughout the asset management industry need to think more like an asset owner – not a provider selling the latest fund. Sadly our industry is heavy on providers selling product and light on deep independent thinking on behalf of the members we serve.
Individuals need to take personal responsibility for the greenwash coming out of their own organisation – be prepared to “own” every claim personally and stop tacitly accepting a bit of greenwashing as the price of real progress, it’s far from harmless.
Read more at the link below …
Correct, Mr. Mikulskis. And this might hurt a little bit.
The CO2 mitigation crusade by intellectuals and government is futile and destructive, not only economically but also environmentally.
Consider industrial wind power. Residents at ground zero, the real environmentalists, have had enough. A recent list of wind siting controversies had these entries:
The anti-fossil-fuel ‘environmentalists’ need to check their premises about climate alarm and forced energy transformation–and call out the greenwashing of wind and solar projects that do so much damage to the landscape.