Nominees:

• Sinn Féin – Lack of a Climate Action policy

• Irish Government – Failure to act on the Climate Crisis

• Minister Charlie McConalogue – China beef export deal

• Leo Varadkar – For having the power to act, but failing at every turn

Winner: The Irish Government

Ireland is one of the world’s great Climate Action laggards.

At this point in time, it is clear that the declaration of a Climate Emergency in 2019 was nothing but a cheap PR exercise undertaken by cynical politicians who have failed at every turn to deliver any meaningful progress.

Ireland has failed to deliver a long-term climate strategy to the EU, three years after the mandated deadline. This dog-ate-my-homework attitude is indicative of the Irish Government’s approach not only to climate action, but its legal responsibilities to act in line with the Climate Case Ireland ruling and EU law.

Our politicians are pissing away time that we don’t have with a constant ‘dog-ate-my-homework’ attitude, despite the fact that the Climate Crisis is already intensifying and manifesting itself across the country.

Irish politicians have been too busy with dog-whistle racism, promoting fossil fuel use, and chasing the votes of racists to actually live up to their promises – or, even, their legal requirements.

This government has failed us on healthcare provision, housing provision, action on homelessness, action on the cost of living, action on a humane system for refugees, care for those affected by the Magdalene Laundries, and they are pissing away the slim hope we have of acting on the Climate Crisis while we still can.

The Irish Government is a worthy winner for their utter and consistent lack of action, compassion and awareness of the Climate Crisis.

Nominees:

• AXA Ireland – Misinformation about its ‘carbon neutral’ car insurance

• FloGas – Paradoxically promoting ‘green’ gas energy

• Maxol – Champion Green sponsorship

• WWF - Profiting from the sale of energy-intensive and polluting NFTs

Winner: AXA Ireland

Ireland’s largest car insurance company came out with an astoundingly opaque and deceptive greenwashing campaign in 2022 – their ‘carbon neutral car insurance,’ which turned out to be anything but.

While AXA Ireland have revelled in promoting their campaign and even won awards for it, they didn’t bother to tell their customers that they were funding an initiative in Brazil that was burning greenhouse gases to create electricity. Or that they planted just 15% of the trees that they promised to plant in Ireland.

This has to be one of the most creatively deceptive greenwashing campaigns that we’ve seen in recent history, and does a wonderful job of showing just how little due diligence offsetting programmes are subjected to.

Of course, their PR agency – Gordon MRM – should be acknowledged for their contribution to misleading AXA Ireland’s customers through this truly creative and deceptive greenwashing campaign.

Nominees:

• RTÉ – Failing on promises to “double down” on climate coverage

• Nissan – Heavy promotion of ‘electric’ hybrids having once led the EV market

• COP27 – Sponsored by Coca-Cola, the world’s biggest plastic polluter

Winner: Nissan Ireland

Nissan was the car brand that really kicked off the electric car movement with the sale of the Leaf back in 2010, leading to sales of 570,000 cars worldwide to date. Yet they have recently shown their true colours with their ‘e-power’ greenwashing campaign.

Their ‘e-Power’ campaign plays heavily on imagery of electricity, despite the fact that they are selling you a car that is 100% reliant on fossil fuels to run. The ‘best of both worlds’ that they are offering you is all the air pollution and negative health impacts of an internal combustion engine, with all the added benefits of depleting battery resources that are vital for actual electric vehicles. Oh, and with all the added cost of running a fossil fuel vehicle compared to an EV.

You can tell that even they don’t buy into this lazy greenwashing when you see that they use the slogan “softer with the environment.” Not kinder to the environment, but “softer” “with” – whatever lie that is supposed to cover.

This is the same deception we have seen time and again from car companies that bait-and-switch their customers with empty promises about hybrid vehicles offering the ‘best of both worlds’.

How many times do we have to say it: hybrids are fossil fuel vehicles!

The future is not cars at all, but better public transport and active travel options – but congratulations to Nissan for perpetuating 1,300 premature deaths in Ireland each year from air pollution. We hope the money you earn from delaying the full switch to electric vehicles is worth it.

Nominees:

• COP Events – Coca Cola sponsorship, Saudi Oil Baron announced as COP28 President & lack of progress

• RTÉ – Failure to deliver on promise to improve the breadth and depth of climate coverage

• Irish Government – Three years behind on climate strategy deadline & missed targets

Winner: RTÉ

Ireland’s publicly-funded broadcaster acknowledged its failure to cover the severity, urgency and scale of the Climate Crisis in July 2021 under then-Managing Director of News & Current Affairs, Jon Williams.

However, little has changed since, with the broadcaster still confining its climate coverage to a tiny number of stories about what individuals can do to lower their carbon footprints, while still giving businesses a free pass to run press releases about their greenwashing efforts.

Nowhere is this clearer than in RTÉ’s coverage of the aviation sector where 93% of their articles about Ryanair published in 2022 failed to mention ‘climate’ or ‘emissions’ in any form – with those that did containing flagrant greenwashing from Ireland’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter.

When challenged on this, they refused to address our questions, with their PR representative providing self-promotional lines that entirely missed the point and had little in relation to their previous promises – or, indeed, our questions.

Without the media accurately reporting on the Climate Crisis and educating the public about the scale, urgency and severity of what we already face – let alone what is to come – we have very little hope of hitting our emissions targets.

RTÉ has become a haven for greenwashing, both in their replication of corporate press releases and in their own reporting, and is using public funds to do so. A truly worthy winner of this award.

Nominees:

• Irish Times – Promoting Land Rover paid celebrity greenwashing

• RTÉ – Failing to deliver on promises of more accurate & consistent climate reporting

• RTÉ – Coverage of Ryanair while failing to discuss aviation emissions

Winner: RTÉ

There was intense competition in this category over the last year, with wide swathes of the Irish press either failing to report on the severity and breadth of the Climate Crisis at all, or simply choosing to diminish it by illustrating the start of the Sixth Mass Extinction with photos of melting ice creams and people at the beach.

Yet, despite the close competition – with the Irish Times’ platforming of greenwashing advertorial from Land Rover drawing particular public ire – the consistent failed promises and squandering of public money means that RTÉ is a truly worth recipient of this award.

As outlined in the Broken Promise Award, RTÉ has repeatedly failed to live up to its promises of improved Climate Crisis coverage, and has even gone as far to end the popular Eco Eye series – the only prominent TV show that has provided vital public education and awareness of the Climate Crisis in recent years.

Efforts to address this with their new Managing Director of News & Current Affairs, Diedre McCarthy, have been blocked by their PR representative, as the national broadcaster seeks to avoid both responsibility and accountability for its shallow Climate Crisis coverage.

A big night for RTÉ to pick up two Irish Greenwashing Awards – and they could not be more deserving.

Nominees:

• Irish Farmer’s Association – Dedication to continued greenwashing

• RTÉ – Extensive coverage and promotion of Ryanair while failing to discuss aviation emissions

• Irish Government – Failure to implement consumer protection legislation against greenwashing

Winner: Irish Farmers’ Association

It is undeniable that agriculture accounts for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland, with the sector producing 38% of all emissions, which have grown consistently since 2011.

This is against an increasing anti-climate action rhetoric from those who purport to represent farmers, who are shirking their responsibility to cut emissions while promoting misinformation about the harm that Ireland’s export-focused beef and dairy industry does.

Instead of focusing on how it can help farmers to work more sustainably and pushing for fairer grants that promote biodiversity over intensive extraction, the IFA has engaged in a culture war where it has tried to pit Irish farmers against the broader Irish society.

Their pursuit of economic growth at all costs – as shown by their celebration of the re-opening of beef exports to China – which comes with an enormous greenhouse gas cost – is entirely at odds with addressing the dual Biodiversity and Climate Crises.

Irish farmers need help more than ever to be suitably reimbursed for their hard work and knowledge, and urgently need a proactive industry body to support them in a just transition where they are better rewarded for prioritising biodiversity and sustainability over mass extraction.

What they don’t need is misdirection, misinformation, delay and an aggressive culture war by those who purport to represent them.

The IFA is letting the Government, corporations and supermarkets mislead the public at every turn to the detriment of the average farmer, promoting delays to cut sky-high emissions. There could scarcely be a better recipient of this year’s award.

Nominees:

• Nissan – ePower campaign

• Applegreen – Continued Powerplus ‘carbon neutral’ misinformation campaign

• Coillte – Sale of land to UK venture firm & ongoing biodiversity deadzone plantations

• WWF – Profiting from the sale of energy-intensive and polluting NFTs

Winner: Coillte

There could only be one winner this year – no other Irish organisation or company has so obviously done more to sell out our future than Coillte.

The State-owned business has sold off 12,000 hectares of Ireland to a UK investment firm who will privatise and commodify Irish land for commercial gain – to the detriment of the Irish people, Irish ecology, and the Climate Crisis.

While the Government has been quick to talk up this deal – primarily because they are still focused entirely on making money, rather than Climate Action – it is a dire arrangement all round for the people and ecology of Ireland.

At best, the land owned by Gresham House will account for just 3.5% of the 10,000 hectares of new forests that Coillte has promised by 2050 (a deadline so far in the future to be worthless in the face of increased wildfires and the rapid acceleration of the Climate Emergency). At worst, the Government is enabling the very colonialism and capitalism that depleted our forests in the first place.

Gresham House and Coillte only see the value in trees when they grow quickly and are extracted for timber. If we are to overcome the dual Biodiversity and Climate Crises, we must value live native trees in the ground, where they belong.

Congratulations to Coillte for their win tonight. We hope they are disbanded and replaced with a more ethical and progressive organisation as soon as possible.

Nominees:

• Bord na Móna – ‘Change is in the air’ campaign, while draining bogs

• Green Awards – Celebrating major polluters & giving validity to unjust ‘green’ credentials

• FloGas – Paradoxically promoting ‘green’ gas energy

Winner: Green Awards

The Green Awards, which were launched in 2008, claim to “recognise the extraordinary contribution and commitment that companies now make towards growing a greener future in Irish business”.

This may sound like a worthy way to raise awareness of the need for businesses to step up in the face of the Climate Crisis, but the 2022 Green Award demonstrated just how rife greenwashing is in the Irish business community.

Of particular note is that Gas Networks Ireland was awarded the “Green Public Sector Organisation of the Year Award”. That’s right, an organisation that is solely responsible for promoting and distributing fossil fuels – and which has been noted for its own greenwashing campaigns – was given a Green Award.

You really couldn’t make this up.

And the impact of allowing corporations to greenwash through these awards was heavily apparent in Gas Networks Ireland’s press release about the awards, in which they heavily promoted greenwashing ideas like ‘renewable gas’.

Congratulations to the Green Awards for empowering Irish business to continue to avoid their responsibilities and for championing greenwashing so publicly.

Nominees:

• Michael O’Leary, CEO, Ryanair — For lobbying the British Government to reduce passenger tax on internal flights and for dismissing the Climate Crisis at every opportunity, while selling more seats

• Bernard Looney, CEO, BP —For leading BP to record profits on the back of the cost-of-living crisis and invasion of Ukraine, while stepping back from its commitment to reduce oil and gas

• David Horgan, Chair, Petrel Resources and Clontarf Energy — For repeated appearances on Irish media that border on outright climate denial

• Kevin REDACTED, CEO of Fuels for REDACTED - For repeatedly issuing SLAPP suits on anyone that calls out their greenwashing and for his long-term dedication to climate denial

Winner: Bernard Looney

And the winner is Bernard Looney.

When he became CEO of BP in 2020, Bernard talked about his Irish mother, how he grew up on a farm in Kerry and how he was committed to reinventing BP and reimagining energy. Not only was he going to bring BP to net zero, but his ambition was to help the world get to net zero – of course all while still selling oil and gas of course. The traditional lies and misdirection of a seasoned professional greenwasher.

Fast forward to 2023 and BP announced record profits for last year helped by soaring fossil fuel prices in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.

Not only that but in a big U-turn, they have now scaled back their so-called commitment to cutting oil and gas production — with Looney saying they are “leaning in” to their strategy but they will also be spending $8bn more on oil and gas between now and 2030.

And it turns out that burning the planet pays very well for Bernard, he’s in line for an £11m special bonus for helping the world, on top of his annual salary of £1.3bn.

Nominees:

• Coillte - Sale of land to UK venture firm & ongoing biodiversity deadzone plantations

• Irish Government – Continued failure to hit emissions targets, profiting from PR not action, continuing to licence

• FloGas - Paradoxically promoting ‘green’ gas energy

• Irish Farmers’ Association – Promotion of ‘sustainable’ beef, aggressive misinformation campaigns

Winner: Irish Farmers’ Association

As ever, we put this one to a fan vote on our Twitter channel, and there was one overwhelmingly clear choice: the Irish Farmers’ Association, with 48.1% of the vote.

It reflects not only that agriculture is accountable for 38% of Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions, or that the IFA so regularly engages in greenwashing and misinformation – but that it is so badly failing to fairly represent farmers themselves.

By so regularly engaging in greenwashing, the IFA are failing to be a fair and representative voice of the farmers of this country, who are already under great pressure to meet the demands of our export-focused market.

If we are to tackle the dual Biodiversity and Climate Crises, our farmers will be crucial in using their knowledge and assets to restore the land so that it can become a positive carbon sink and a haven for plantlife and wildlife.

But the IFA’s current rhetoric is one that promotes delays and misinformation time and time again, braying about ‘sustainable’ and ‘efficient’ beef that is being sent halfway around the world with an enormous carbon footprint.

Not only is the IFA failing to fairly represent the farmers of Ireland and aid them in a just transition to become curators of nature, as well as producers of food, it is also selling them out by failing to help them prepare for what is to come.

Climate-led droughts and famines are becoming more and more common the world over, and it is only a matter of time before Irish crops start to fail.

Pivoting away from intensive meat and dairy farming that does all it can to supress nature, to a predominantly plant-based agriculture that works hand-in-hand with nature is the only way that Ireland can survive the Climate Crisis.

The IFA knows it, it just doesn’t care.

Nominees:

• Clean Creatives – For their dedication to calling out advertisers, marketers and PR agencies on their greenwashing

• Eoghan Dalton – For his commitment to public education about the biodiversity crisis, the impact of Irish farming on ecology, and the importance of native forests

• Climate Town – For their dedication to education in an informative, accessible and engaging manner

• Emily Atkin – For consistently having her finger on the pulse of greenwashing and breaking stories of international significance

• Amy Westervelt – For calling out greenwashing by the biggest companies on Earth at the highest level

• Mary Annaïse Heglar – For continually aligning the impact of greenwashing with climate justice, and writing eloquently about the impact of climate anxiety on mental health

Winner: Climate Town

This award acknowledges those people or organisations who are dedicated to calling out greenwashing in all its forms, giving those corporations who profit from misinformation little room to hide, and pressuring politicians to act and protect consumers from the harm this does.

While the Irish Greenwashing Awards focus on the issue at home, greenwashing is a growing international issue, and this award reflects that with a group of incredible nominees from around the world.

All of these nominees deserve enormous respect for what they do and the different approaches they take to this central Climate Action issue. They all deserve this award, but we are going with the established convention of a single winner:

The Climate Town YouTube channel created by Rollie Williams is a highly deserving winner, and one that is making the issue of greenwashing more accessible, transparent and unavoidable.

Moreover, they have brought a much-needed sense of humour and personality to the topic, combining clear and concise information with craic that is so often lacking in the Climate Crisis conversation.

From lampooning fast fashion, to the extent of the PR campaign to keep you using gas stoves, Climate Town is not only consistently compelling but a vital cog in increasing public education about greenwashing and the Climate Emergency.

With over 15.2 million views at the time of writing, they are already a valuable nemesis to those who greenwash – and worthy winners of this award.

Winner: Applegreen

Our headline award of the night acknowledges the brand, person or organisation that has constantly defied expectations and raised the bar for greenwashing year after year. They have shown unrivalled dedication not only to misinformation, but to profiting from deceiving the public and worsening the Climate Crisis.

Our Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 goes to… Applegreen.

Applegreen was truly ahead of the curve when it came to greenwashing in Ireland. They pioneered public deception with their PowerPlus ‘carbon neutral’ fuel campaign and continue to run it to this day on forecourts across Ireland, despite the fact is has no credibility whatsoever.

They continue to refuse to publicly acknowledge that they are only ‘offsetting’ the emissions of their fuel once it goes into their customers’ fuel tank – not the emissions of exploration, extraction, production or transport to the consumer – and even then it is based entirely on a lie.

We all know that carbon offsetting doesn’t work if you don’t reduce emissions in the first place, and that 85% of offsetting projects failed to reduce emissions in any single way. Meanwhile, Applegreen also won’t tell you that – even if they did work – it would take up to 50 years for the native trees they’re planting to absorb the emissions their fuel creates.

That’s if they aren’t wiped out in climate-led fires.

Oh, and did we mention that the PowerPlus brand is a premium fuel that costs users more money based on entirely unfounded ‘green’ claims?

Of course, the Lifetime Achievement Award also acknowledges what Applegreen is doing for the next generation.

Not only filling their lungs with harmful chemicals that are more likely to lead to early and avoidable deaths, but also promoting heavy misinformation through their BioDive school initiative.

Catherine Cleary, founder of Pocket Forests, called out the “campaign to get its marketing material home in the school bags of Irish primary school children” stating that we are “in an unchaRTÉred greenwashing torrent here. A deep-pocketed forecourt company harnessing the pester power of children is next level.”

While a telling letter from the Principal of a junior infants school in Dublin decried the harm of the campaign: “The idea that a petrol supply company is committed to educating young people in the importance of conserving and promoting biodiversity defies belief. It is a cynical exercise in counter-education.”

All the while, Applegreen has used its PR agency to block legitimate public enquiries and avoid accountability for the genuine harm that they are doing to public and planetary health.

Few other companies in Ireland have shown such a consistent dedication to profiting directly from misinformation, deception and greenwashing than Applegreen, and this award recognises their ongoing commitment to profiting from the Climate Crisis.