Greenwashing Awards Unearth the Dirt

Greenwashing is the fine art of socially and environmentally destructive corporations attempting to preserve and expand their markets by posing as friends of the environment and leaders in the struggle to eradicate poverty. It is when companies spend more on the public relations events around their environment and social investment programmes, than they do on the projects themselves, explains the Earth Summit Business Academy - producers of the Green Oscars.

* The award for Best Greenwash goes to energy corporation BP - for their Beyond Petroleum re-branding campaign. BP, the corporation, brags about investing 200 million U.S. dollars in solar energy, roughly the price of the redesign of its logo and related advertising. At the same time it spends billions of U.S. dollars buying up more energy companies and exploring for oil.

* Best Supporting Government goes to the United States of America for representing corporate interests in environmental treaty negotiations.

* The Best Supporting UN Agency goes to the Office of the Global Compact for allowing corporations to ally with the United Nations without a commitment to following its principles.

* Best Documentary Destruction goes to Arthur Anderson for excellence in shredding.

* Best Make-up goes to energy company Enron, which became the world's sixth biggest corporation by revenue in 2001 -- by making up their profits.

* Best Picture goes to South African petrochemical company, Sasol, for their "Putting as much into the community as we do into our petrol" campaign. The absence of pollution control measures in South Africa allows Sasol to dump hundreds of thousands of tons of cancer causing chemicals onto townships downwind of their plants.

* The Booby Prize goes to Philip Morris and British American Tobacco for not convincing anybody that they don't want kids to smoke or that they care about women and children -- despite spending millions of U.S. dollars on public relations.

The "Greenwash Awards" are produced by environmental non-governmental organisations Friends of the Earth International, Groundwork and Corpwatch. Its aim is to highlight the danger of greenwashing, which lulls the public and politicians into thinking that companies are moving to protect the global environment when in reality they harming the planet by conducting business as usual. The awards were presented on Aug. 23.