The comic and self-styled consumer champion turns his attention to the ‘eco-friendly’ face of the fossil fuel behemoth. Is he virtue signalling? Yes – but it’s hard not to be impressed
There are two kinds of greenwashing. The first involves corporations making us believe that their products are environmentally sustainable. It’s what Derren Brown calls misdirection of attention. For instance, if you based your opinion solely on Shell’s publicity material and TV ads – all solar panels, wind turbines and bicycles – you might think it was quite a different company to the one it is. Nor would you guess that only $900m of its annual investment pot of $116bn goes towards renewable energy.
You might think that Shell’s vow to go carbon neutral by 2050 shows how environmentally conscious it is rather than this move being the result of a Dutch court’s ruling this spring ordering the company to reduce its emissions by 45% by 2030. You wouldn’t know that Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Authority, recently called on the company to stop drilling for new oilfields, stressing that governments must stop all new oil and gas investments from this year in order to curb global heating.
