Eco-Illusions and Carbon Conundrums
Navigating the murky waters of greenwashing and offset claims.
The destructive effects of climate change are becoming increasingly evident as natural catastrophes and unprecedented high temperatures rise. Consumers are becoming more conscious of the environmental consequences of their purchase decisions, aiming to decrease their ecological footprint, with many willing to pay more for more sustainable options. In response, numerous companies are introducing âgreenâ marketing tactics to showcase their sustainability efforts.
For the last few decades, a lot of interest and financial incentives have been allocated to ensure corporate sustainability; yet standards for how corporations report their sustainability efforts and monitoring these efforts have been created very slowly.Â
Greenwashing
Today's consumers encounter a flood of eco-friendly messages from businesses aiming to capitalise on the growing awareness of environmental concerns. Greenwashing, in this context, is making misleading claims about a companyâs products and presenting them as more environmentally friendly than they actually are.
The term was not coined back then, but a textbook success of greenwashing is âPeople Doâ campaign by oil company Chevron in the 1980s; which consisted of Chevron employees protecting sea turtles, butterflies and bears and other cute and cuddly animals. This advert was so successful that in 1990, they won an Effie advertising award.
Greenwashing is now more prevalent than ever. It has increased by 300% since 2009. Research in Europe indicated that 42% of green claims were exaggerated, false, or deceptive, pointing to industrial greenwashing. An EU survey in 2020 also found that 53% of environmental product claims were âvague, misleading or unfoundedâ. In 2023, more than 200 âeco-labelsâ were being used in the EU, relying on different methodologies.
The investigation by the commission showed that half of the label verification procedures were either absent or weak.
Carbon Offsetting
Carbon offsetting involves investing in projects that reduce or store carbon. This can be by preserving forests and tree planting, but also includes investment in projects that reduce emissions - such as wind farms, sustainable agriculture, etc. For example, REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) is part of FAO (the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization), and aims at providing forest owners with an alternative to logging and exploitation by allowing them to raise money to protect their forests - based on the carbon value of preserving forests and restoring the ecosystemâs health. On the surface this sounds good - so why is carbon offsetting controversial?
Because REDD+ and similar schemes will not end deforestation.
Forests in these schemes can earn carbon credits and serve as carbon offsets, even if they continue to be logged. In some cases, loggers take the highest-value trees (such as hardwoods used for timber) and leave the rest standing. Others simply take wood at a lower rate than deforestation. A study by the University of Cambridge on the REDD+ projects showed that many of the âcarbon creditsâ bought by companies to balance out emissions are not tied to real-world forest preservation as claimed.
The authors of this article, Professor Andreas Kontoleon et al. from the University of Cambridge, say, âThese projects have already been used to offset almost three times more carbon than they have actually mitigated through forest preservation [âŚ] Some companies seem to use carbon offsetting to claim that they are moving towards ânet-zeroâ [âŚ] while doing very little to reduce greenhouse gasses.â
Another study by the same authors suggests that only 6% of the total carbon credits produced by all 18 REDD+ projects in 2020 are valid.
In contrast to REDD+ there was a study by Jayachandran et al. (2017) involving a randomised trial where landowners in Uganda were financially compensated to reduce the cutting down of trees, and this approach significantly decreased the degradation of forests.
The REDD+ scheme has been shown to be inadequate owning to issues with monitoring carbon sink preservation and measuring.
The Costs of Carbon Offsetting
More than $36 billion has been invested in the carbon offset market since 2012. âCarbon offsetting is important but can only be an additionality â we need to get off fossil fuels and do carbon offsets.â says Johan RockstrĂśm, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and chief scientist at Conservation International.
Yet this is not what happens nowadays. A joint investigation by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and SourceMaterial (a non-profit investigative journalism organisation) concluded that more than 90% of so-called carbon credits used by firms such as Shell, Disney, Gucci and other big corporations were almost worthless.
Research on this is extremely limited, but more importantly, â...they really have to be highly regulated, otherwise people are buying hot air, and things they donât know the true value of.â says Simon Lewis, professor of global change science at UCL (University College London, UK).Â
Greenwashing awareness is increasing; in 2022, the Competition and Markets Authority started investigating Bohoo, ASOS and George at ASDA for greenwashing. Innocent had their advert banned by ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) after being accused of greenwashing by the environmental group Plastics Rebellion. These are just a few examples; but there are plenty more. Though awareness is increasing, there is still no proper punishment for Greenwashing at the moment.Â
The Relation to Biotech
Biotech and synthetic biology have played a big part in the puzzle regarding carbon capture to mitigate climate change. One of the ways biotechnology can help reduce deforestation is by preventing deforestation for agriculture. Meat production accounts for almost 60% of greenhouse gasses from food production, and is responsible for 80% of deforestation and 25% of anthropogenic climate change [1].Â
Studies show that plant-based foods emit half of the emissions of animal based foods - but these studies did not take into account plant-based protein alternatives which are what emit the most in plant-based diet. Meat is a very inefficient energy source production wise; on average, 1Kg of boneless meat requires 3.9Kg of human edible feed and soybean cakes. Protein wise, it is also not that productive; 1Kg of protein from meat requires on average 2.6Kg proteins from human-edible feed and soybean cakes.
Fake meat, such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, have won attention in the past decade. However, Marco Springman, Senior Researcher on Environment and Health at the University of Oxford says, âIf Beyondâs products help people switch from normal beef to a replacement, itâs not so bad. But it should not be the end goalâŚThe carbon footprint of these processed plant-based products falls in between chicken and beef.â
In 2019, in an interview with New Yorker magazine, Pat Brown, C.E.O. of Impossible Foods claimed âThe use of animals in food production is by far the most destructive technology on earth. We see our mission as the last chance to save the planet from environmental catastrophe.â when referring to Impossible Foodsâ products.
However, there is no independent research assessing the carbon footprint of these companies (neither for Beyond and Impossible), including reports of the carbon footprint of the whole supply chain instead of just manufacturing. âThose companies make wild claims, but they donât back that up with any independent attestmentâ said Springman on a interview with NBC, âTheir claims are based on third-party potential estimates of emissions.â
The secret is in how the ingredients are grown and harvested; but companies do not release this info publicly making it difficult to assess whether they are actually more sustainable. âBeyond and Impossible go somewhere towards reducing your carbon footprint, but saying itâs the most climate friendly thing to do â thatâs a false promise,â said said Springman on a interview with NBC. âIt makes sense to develop alternatives to beef, because we have to change our eating habits to more plant-based diets if we want to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius. Impossible and Beyond tap into this market. [...] However, while their processed products have about half the carbon footprint that chicken does, they also have 5 times more of a footprint than a bean patty.â
In contrast to plant protein-based products, cellular agriculture can help mitigate the reliance on protein sourced directly from animals by instead growing them in bioreactors. The cellular agriculture market was valued at USD 133.4 billion in 2021 and it is projected to reach USD 515.24 billion by 2030.
However, its impact on the environment has not been fully assessed since it is a very recent technology. Some studies have attempted to calculate the energy, water consumption and environmental cost of these meat analogs; however, the cellular agriculture technology is in a very early stage of development; and there is no proper product-level life-cycle assessment (LCA) studies that take into account the feedstock of the bioreactors. Tuomisto compares the impact on the environment of beef, poultry, milk, eggs and cellular agriculture products; yet it is very difficult to assess the sustainability of lab grown meats because the carbon footprint varies highly depending on the culture medium and the design of bioreactors. Also, LCAs did not take into account the increased demand for critical materials, such as tellurium, and other materials necessary to build or adapt infrastructure.Â
Still, this technology could replace 72% of livestock products and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 52% on agriculture, and there is potential in this technology to decrease emissions on the agricultural sector. Cellular agriculture can be part of the solution therefore, but should not be the only change to adopt.
Another way biotech can help cut emissions in the agricultural sector is with vertical farming (VF), with reports showing that VF reduces water usage by 99% compared to open fields and fertiliser efficiency by approximately 100%. The only downside is the energy usage, but Padraic Flood, a geneticist working at Infarm, one of Europeâs largest vertical farming companies, says that Infarm has developed a wheat strain capable of yielding approximately 117 tonnes per hectare. This significantly surpasses the global average yield of about four tonnes. Enhanced productivity is possible because wheat can be harvested six times annually, which is achieved through a controlled environment that accelerates seasonal cycles.
Yet biotech is not immune to greenwashing; a CEA Census Report from Agritecture and WayBeyond showed that 70% of the growers in the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) sector believe the CEA industry is susceptible to âexcessive greenwashingâ. Still, no official reports or research back their beliefs.Â
Despite significant advancements, like the declaration on sustainable agriculture at COP28 and strides in cellular agriculture and biotechnology, challenges like greenwashing and the controversy over carbon offsetting underscore the necessity for rigorous oversight and genuine commitment to environmental integrity. The burgeoning awareness of greenwashing and the critical eye on carbon offset markets highlights a growing demand for transparency and real action. As we navigate these challenges, the integration of biotechnology in preserving our planet offers a glimmer of hope, promising innovative solutions to age-old problems of deforestation and carbon emissions. Yet, without stringent regulation and a collective shift towards sustainable practices across industries, these efforts risk being undermined.
ReferencesÂ
[1] Sachdeva, Sonya, Jennifer Jordan, and Nina Mazar. "Green consumerism: moral motivations to a sustainable future." Current Opinion in Psychology 6 (2015): 60-65.
[2] Scherer, Laura, Oscar Rueda, and Sergiy Smetana. "Environmental impacts of meat and meat replacements." Meat and meat replacements. Woodhead Publishing, 2023. 365-397.