ABSTRACT
The earlier analyses of the BP CEO’s speech, in chapter 4, and other corporate analyses in chapters 2 and 3 have already prepared us for the ‘greenwash’ they manifest. The Greenpeace activists Greer and Bruno (1996: 11) characterize this process thus:
A corporate leader in ozone destruction takes credit for being a leader in ozone protection. A giant oil transnational embraces the “precautionary approach” to global warming. A major agrochemical manufacturer trades in a pesticide so hazardous it has been banned in many countries, while implying that it is helping to feed the hungry. A petrochemical firm uses the waste from one polluting process as raw material for another, and boasts that this is an important recycling initiative. A logging company cuts timber from natural rainforest, replaces it with plantations of a single exotic species, and calls the project ‘sustainable forest development.’
