Book Review: The Great Greenwashing

📖 This article is featured in illuminem’s Curated Booklist: the influential books shaping the world sustainability debate. 

Title: The Great Greenwashing
Author: John Pabon
Publisher: House of Anansi
Publication: May 2023
Sustainability topics: Ethical Governance 🏛

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🗞️ Driving the news: "The Great Greenwashing" by John Pabon critiques the pervasive nature of greenwashing across industries, governments, and celebrities
• Pabon uses vivid examples, such as deceptive marketing tactics, and state-sponsored environmental hypocrisy, to showcase the scale of the problem
• He balances his critique with practical advice on how individuals and companies can genuinely contribute to sustainability

🔭 The context: Greenwashing, the practice of making misleading claims about the environmental benefits of a product or service, is widespread and often shields harmful practices from scrutiny
• Pabon’s book exposes these tactics and emphasizes the importance of scrutinizing entire supply chains and corporate cultures
• He also contrasts untrustworthy sectors like fossil fuels with more trustworthy ones like pharma and grocery, while acknowledging the complexity of perfect corporate responsibility

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: The book highlights the significant damage that greenwashing can do by obscuring real environmental harms and undermining public trust in genuine sustainability efforts
• By encouraging readers to critically evaluate sustainability claims, Pabon aims to foster a more informed and proactive approach to combating climate change

⏭️ What's next: Pabon advocates for a shift from superficial green claims to substantive environmental actions
• He stresses that both individual and collective actions are essential in driving genuine change, warning against both corporate and personal greenwashing

💬 One quote: "As companies continue to evolve … the available space for greenwashing will increasingly shrink," Pabon writes, suggesting an eventual reduction in deceptive practices as sustainability becomes more ingrained in corporate culture

📈 One stat: The book reports that the world discards 100 million tons of textiles annually, a figure projected to rise to 134 million by 2030

This review is part of illuminem’s Curated Booklist: the influential books shaping the sustainability debate. illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting exclusive insights from the world’s largest network of sustainability thought leaders. Their views expressed do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

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