Most of us are aware of “greenwashing” – organisations (or even individuals) that claim they are helping the environment but whose claims do not stand up to scrutiny. I tend to also use it when we are talking about other “purpose” activities in the social and economic space that turn out to be dubious as well. So firms talking about diversity in the supply chain without really taking meaningful action; or those telling us how they care about “the planet and its people”, but who use dubious tax avoidance schemes.
What is interesting now is that more examples are emerging where organisations are being questioned and challenged. It is often the media, charities or similar who are looking into schemes and claims more carefully, but even individual consumers are getting more switched on to the greenwashing nonsense we sometimes see.
A recent example wwas this excellent investigation by Reuters into what sounded like a very good programme promoted by US petrochemicals firm Dow and the government of Singapore. The idea was that old unwanted sneakers / trainers that might have gone to landfill would be collected and chopped up. The rubberised soles could then be turned into a material that can be used for various purposes, such as creating all weather sports pitches and playgrounds. Sounds like a great idea! The circular economy in action, good publicity for Dow (and Singapore) and everybody benefits.
But the Reuters investigators put tiny hidden trackers inside 11 pairs of donated shoes, and then spent a lot of time and energy working out where they went. In most cases, the answer was “street markets in Indonesia”, where there is a buoyant market for second-hand kit like this, rather than a rubber re-processing plant.
Now it could be argued that re-selling the shoes is also a sustainable approach. However, Indonesia has a problem with huge imports of “waste” clothing and footwear coming into the country. As the Reuters article says, “cast-offs pose a public health risk, undercut its local textile industry and often pile more waste into its already bulging landfills”.
When Reuters told Dow about their findings, Dow investigated, along with other programme sponsors (Sport Singapore, a state agency, Decathlon, Standard Chartered plc; Alba-WH, a local waste management firm; and B.T. Sports Pte Ltd, a Singaporean firm responsible for shredding the donated footwear at a local facility). The result was that Yok Impex, a used-clothing exporter, that had been involved in collecting footwear from donation bins, was kicked off the programme. The programme is now looking for another company to collect the shoes.
Environmental groups claim that many firms are greenwashing today in terms of recycling - making exaggerated or false claims to offset the huge production of single-use plastics in packaging and fast fashion. Dow says that a sports facility under construction in Jurong, a district in western Singapore, will use recycled shoe material in its surfaces, and another soccer complex in the country has the first track made from recycled shoe granules. But Reuters has not been able to verify these claims yet.
Singapore’s government and civil service is one of the most competent in the world, so I am surprised at their involvement in the failure here. I would have expected them (and Dow of course) to be checking out the scheme more thoroughly, and really, this comes down to a failure of contract and supplier management as much as anything. I don’t think the programme partners acted maliciously and deliberately planned for sneakers to be resold; my assumption is that they just did not have the right contractual or management mechanisms in place to make sure their contractor did exactly what it was supposed to do.
But that is no excuse really. It is the Dow brand that is damaged by this, so the firm should have been more diligent in managing the end -to-end process. And the learning for everyone is that sustainability programmes are fine, but if you want to avid accusations of greenwashing, they really need to be managed carefully and closely.