Thread by @IrishEVs

🧵#Thread Welcome to the #IGA22 Irish Greenwashing Awards 2022

The awards recognise the growing issue of #greenwashing in Ireland & aim to highlight the need for urgent legislation in this area

As corporations profit from the Climate Crisis & misinforming the people of Ireland

The Awards also aim to raise awareness of how the Irish press are consistently overlooking the issue #greenwashing, while actively empowering brands to promote misinformation

Make your voices heard about this issue by using the #IGA22 hashtag, commenting & sharing this thread

So, without further ado, let us begin the Awards with our first category:

The Political Inaction Award

This Award acknowledges those with the power to act on the #ClimateCrisis & greenwashing, but who choose to do nothing to address these issues
#IGA22

And the winner is…

@MichealMartinTD & The Irish Government

Worthy winners of the Award, owing to their failure to treat the #ClimateCrisis like a crisis, despite declaring a Climate Emergency back in 2019
#IGA22

Find out more about why @MichealMartinTD & The Irish Government have won the Political Inaction Award

Highlights include:

☠️Missing 2020 emissions targets
🧑‍⚖️Excessive court costs for environmental action
❌Aggressive stance being taken against campaigners
#IGA22

We would particularly draw attention to @MichealMartinTD's consistent focus on climate action by 2050 - something entirely at odds with the latest IPCC report

By which time 1.2bn face being displaced by the Climate Crisis:
irishevs.com/irish-politica…

#IGA22 #ClimateCrisis

On to our next award of the evening:

Most Creative Greenwashing Award

In a world where greenwashing is becoming ever more common, it takes more & more creativity from brands to stand out from the crowd when pretending to take action on the Climate Crisis
#IGA22 #ClimateCrisis

And the winner is...

@toyotaireland

Few brands could stand up to the consistent creativity of Toyota Ireland, who really have raised the bar for so imaginatively spreading fear, uncertainly and doubt amongst the Irish public
#IGA22 #ClimateCrisis

Find out more about why @toyotaireland have been won the Most Creative Greenwashing Award for 2022

From misformation about 'self-charging hybrids', to passing off opinion as fact, trolling environmental activists on Twitter & paying for bogus research
#IGA22

You can find out more Toyota's consistent greenwashing - including their repeated passing off opinion as fact in the Irish press - here:
irishevs.com/we-need-to-tal…
#IGA22 #Greenwashing

While they have also paid @ucddublin to conduct unscientific research to support #greenwashing claims about their hybrid vehicles.

You can read more on that here:
irishevs.com/toyota-ireland…

#IGA22 #ClimateCrisis

On to our next award of the evening:

The Broken Promise Award

This acknowledges those who have promised to step up their action in the face of the #ClimateCrisis over the past year - but who have yet to do so

#IGA22 #Greenwashing

And the winner is...

@WilliamsJon, RTE News

More than 6 months have passed since Mr Williams promised RTE would step up and address its lack of #ClimateCrisis coverage - and yet we still see RTE News regularly promoting greenwashing in its stories

#IGA22 #Greenwashing

Find out more about why @rtenews has claimed the Broken Promise Award 2022

And read examples of how RTE News is supporting the promotion of greenwashing in Ireland here:irishevs.com/syndicated-med…

#IGA22 #ClimateCrisis

Perhaps the best example of why @rtenews was able to claim the Broken Promise Award is summed up by this recent article

Promoting Ryanair's 'largest ever flight schedule' without a single mention of how aviation worsens the Climate Crisis
rte.ie/news/business/….

#IGA22

We hope that in 2022, Mr Williams will live up to his apology for a lack of #ClimateCrisis coverage & address the consistent promotion of greenwashing and misinformation by RTE News
independent.ie/irish-news/rte…

#IGA22

We stick with the Irish press for our next category of the evening:

Greenwashing Media of the Year

This award recognises the publication most dedicated to platforming greenwashing from brands & politicians alike

#IGA22 #Greenwashing

Despite hot competition in this category, of course there could only ever be one winner...

@IrishTimes

For their consistent prioritising of climate misinformation, disinformation & greenwashing across almost every section of the publication

#IGA22 #Greenwashing

The IT has really raised the greenwashing bar in the past year

Innovations, such as the promotion of sponsored #greenwashing content from Land Rover have really helped them stand out from the competition

irishevs.com/irish-times-cl…

#IGA22 #ClimateCrisis

And now to our fifth award of the night:

Greenwashing Enabler of the Year

Behind every great greenwashing brand is a PR agency helping them to spread misinformation to the public and the press.

This award recognises their dedication

#IGA22

The winner of the Greenwashing Enabler of the Year Award is...

...@CullenComms

This award acknowledges that dedication of Cullen Communications in promoting greenwashing campaigns on behalf of Applegreen

#IGA22

From helping @goapplegreen promote misinformation about 'climate neutral' fuels, to supporting their efforts to greenwash children, and announcing that a fuel seller will be 'carbon neutral' by 2030...

...Cullen Communications really has done it all
#IGA22

If you are interested in learning more about how PR, marketing and advertising agencies are helping brands to greenwash - and profit from the #ClimateCrisis - we recommend this article:
irishevs.com/the-problem-wi…

#IGA22 #Greenwashing

You can also find out more in this excellent @cleantechnica article by @JohnnaCrider1: "How PR Agencies Are Greenwashing The Climate Crisis"
cleantechnica.com/2020/12/07/how…

We also highly recommend that you follow @cleancreatives for their exceptional work in this area
#IGA22

And for more on how @goapplegreen is using its biodiversity in schools campaign to divert critical attention away from the role of fossil fuels in the #ClimateCrisis, we highly recommend @catherineeats's latest article:
irishtimes.com/life-and-style…

#IGA22 #Greenwashing

This leads us on to our next award of the evening:

Profiting from the Climate Crisis Award

This award recognises those brands who have gone out of their way to turn the ever-worsening Climate Crisis into an opportunity to increase their profit margins

#IGA22 #ClimateCrisis

And the winner is...

...@goapplegreen

We know that this will be a very popular winner, as many IrishEVs readers have repeatedly noted Applegreen's dedication to greenwashing this past year

#IGA22 #Greenwashing

It takes real guts to mislead the public about offsetting emissions, but @goapplegreen has made it an art

Their premium 'carbon neutral' fuels only offset a fraction of the fuel's emissions & even then could take up to 35 years to be offset
irishevs.com/applegreen-was…
#IGA22

How to do you feel about @goapplegreen saying making a profit from selling more expensive fuels with a misleading promise that they will 'offset' the emissions?

Let them know
irishevs.com/applegreen-was…

#IGA22 #Greenwashing

A quick tip for any brands out there who want to win this category next year, take note of @goapplegreen's greenwashing imagery

Honestly, dead shrub head close to the camera is the best 'green' look they could manage to launch their #Greenwashing campaign
#IGA22

We hope that you are enjoying the first annual Irish Greenwashing Awards #IGA22 as we reach the halfway stage of the event

This is the inaugural event & we'd love your feedback on how we could improve

And don't be afraid to get involved in the comments
#Greenwashing

The next award of the evening is Misdirection Greenwashing Award

This award recognises the brand that has gone out of its way to promote a ‘green’ message to hide the wider consequences of its actions
#IGA22 #Greenwashing

And the winner in this hotly contested category, which is set to be a much sought-after award in 2023 is...

... Ariel's #washcoldchallenge

Kudos to Ariel for their creative deception
#IGA22 #Greenwashing

Ariel has cleverly hidden their contribution to worsening microplastic pollution behind a genuine message about using less energy

This is designed to help them avoid scrutiny for their role in microplastic pollution - which is now seen in unborn babies

#IGA22 #plasticpollution

You can find out more about the shocking ubiquity of microplastics - including how they have been detected in the placentas of unborn babies - in this excellent @dpcarrington article from Dec 2020:
theguardian.com/environment/20…

#IGA22 #Greenwashing

Sadly we've already reached our penultimate award of the evening

The Fan's Choice Greenwashing Award

This recognises the biggest greenwasher of the past year, as voted for by IrishEVs readers

#IGA22 #Greenwashing

By an overwhelming majority, the winner of the Fans' Choice Greenwashing Award 22 is...

...@toyotaireland

Our readers have inundated us with comments about their 'self-charging hybrid' campaigns & trolling on Twitter

Deserving winners!
#IGA22 #Greenwashing

Don't forget, you can find out more about Toyota Ireland's considerable history of #greenwashing here:
irishevs.com/we-need-to-tal…

And for an in-depth explainer on the 'self-charging hybrid' scandal, we have you covered:
irishevs.com/the-myth-of-hy…

#IGA22

And so, we have reached the final award of the evening:

The Lifetime Achievement Award for Greenwashing

Our headline award for the night acknowledges the brand, person or organisation that has constantly defied expectations and raised the bar for greenwashing year after year

We are sure this can come as no surprise, given their tireless work to delay climate action

The winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award is...

... Denis Murphy, The Irish Car Carbon Reduction Alliance (ICCRA)

Congratulations!
#IGA22 #Greenwashing #ClimateCrisis

Don't let their name deceive you, ICCRA have been lobbying the Irish government to delay emissions regulations by a decade to increase the profits of their members

As they represent "the majority of car dealers in Ireland" (Their own words)

#IGA22 #Greenwashing

Their commitment to delaying emissions regulations saw them launch the E-Way 2040 campaign, which spreads misinformation about car emissions & electric vehicles
irishevs.com/debunking-iccr…

#IGA22 #Greenwashing

Of course, ICCRA couldn't have done this alone.

Aside from the PR agency they previously worked with, our winners from earlier in the night - @IrishTimes - have repeatedly run interviews with Denis Murphy without any balance whatsoever:
irishevs.com/irish-times-cl…

#IGA22

We would have loved to tag Denis Murphy & ICCRA in this post so that they could get recognition for winning, but they don't have a Twitter account...

... or an email address. Or a website

Or any transparency or accountability whatsoever
lobbying.ie/organisation/2…

#IGA22

All that remains to say is a sincere thank you to all of you for joining us for the #IGA22

We hope that this event will bring greater scrutiny of those profiting from the #ClimateCrisis, or failing to take necessary action - despite empty promises:
irishevs.com/irish-greenwas…

We hope that you will all continue to spread the word, and demand greater scrutiny and accountability from the Irish press

So that we may avert the 1,300 premature deaths in Ireland each year due to air pollution - and the 5 million annual deaths from the #ClimateCrisis

#IGA22

A full list of all the Irish Greenwashing Award 22 recipients - and their justification for their accolades can be found on our website: irishevs.com/irish-greenwas…

We hope you'll join us again in 2023

Thank you!
#IGA22 #Greenwashing #ClimateCrisis