Irish Greenwashing Awards 2024 Announced

Irish Greenwashing Awards 2024 aim to raise awareness of disinformation about the Climate Emergency and protect Irish consumers

Ireland may be one of the bastions of greenwashing, misinformation and profiteering from the Climate Emergency, according to a campaign seeking to raise public awareness about the issue.

The third annual Irish Greenwashing Awards are due to take place on Tuesday 10th December, and are calling for greater government support for public education about the issue of greenwashing and legislation to protect Irish consumers.

The term greenwashing is used to describe false, misleading or untrue promises made by an organisation which have been designed to help them have a greener public image, without anything substantial to back up those claims.

Often this can take the form of placing the onus for change on the consumer, with products labelled as ‘sustainable’ carrying a higher price – despite the fact that the consumer’s carbon footprint is just a fraction of the corporation that created the product.

Tom Spencer, creator of the Irish Greenwashing Awards, said: “There is a greenwashing epidemic in Ireland, where consumers are consistently being presented with misinformation that is designed to delay climate action and profit from people who want to reduce their carbon footprint during a cost-of-living crisis.”

“We urgently need robust legislation to protect consumers, as well as a government-led awareness campaign to stop people being scammed. This issue has been ignored for too long, and with Ireland due to face €8bn in annual fines for missing emissions targets from 2030 onwards, greenwashing impacts everyone at both a personal and national level.”

The Irish Greenwashing Awards, which were launched in 2021, are open to public nominations for those campaigns and organisations that the general public feel are most misleading.

Previous Irish Greenwashing Award categories have included:

• Political Inaction Award - For the politicians going out of their way to delay climate action

• Most Creative Greenwashing Award - For the company going above and beyond to deceive the public

• Broken Promise Award - For those organisations that have pledged to do better, but who have doubled down on greenwashing

• Greenwashing Media of the Year - For the publication or news organisation that has platformed the most greenwashing and disinformation about the Climate Emergency

• Greenwashing CEO of the Year - The business leader going out of their way to promote greenwashing

• Greenwashing Nemesis Award - For the person or organisation fighting back against the rising tide of greenwashing

UN Secretary General, António Guterres, has previously warned that the increase in greenwashing not only misleads the public but also weakens net-zero pledges, leading to a lower likelihood of meeting the emissions reductions required by the Paris Climate Agreement.

Ireland has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but the latest figures from the Irish Environmental Protection agency show that it is currently on course for a best case reduction of 29% before the legally-binding deadline.

Public nominations for greenwashing campaigns worthy of an Irish Greenwashing Award can be submitted to irishevguide@gmail.com

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