Shell oil under fire for greenwashing

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Shell under fire over efforts to paint itself green

Terry Macalister

Wednesday May 16, 2007

Shell came under fire at its annual meeting yesterday from environmental campaigners who accused it of peddling “shameful, absurd and misleading” adverts about its green credentials and of presiding over a growing number of oil spills and defying court orders to halt gas flaring in Nigeria.

The Dutch arm of Friends of the Earth (FoE) said that Shell had taken out a series of adverts that presented the company as a leader in renewable energy and one that was tackling carbon output from refineries by using it to grow flowers in nurseries.

Yet less than 1% of Shell’s schemes related to renewable power whereas “99% are not sustainable” because they are related to oil and gas, said Paul de Clerck, a representative from FoE.

There was only one scheme in which greenhouses were heated by a refinery, he added.

The FoE filed a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority yesterday.

Biologist Rachel Carson: here.