What is greenwashing?
Greenwashing is a form of misleading marketing in which a product or business is portrayed as more climate and environmentally friendly than it actually is. Greenwashing is often used by fossil fuel companies in their marketing and advertising campaigns to mislead the public perception and create a positive reputation. This is often done by highlighting any investment in renewable energy or other low carbon solutions in their marketing campaigns, even though oil and gas production represent the vast majority of the company's energy production.
Read more: Greenwashing in the fossil fuel industry: Is carbon offsetting greenwashing?
Equinor and greenwashing
Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor is an expert at greenwashing, and spends massive resources on marketing and advertising campaigns, and sponsorship of cultural institutions, youth programmes and sports events. These adverts are created to convey Equinor's own narrative that they are a “broad energy company in transition”, that they invest considerable amounts in renewable energy, and are serious about reducing their carbon emissions and becoming net zero by 2050. What these advertisements don't tell you is that Equinor’s energy production is still 99 percent oil and gas, or that their investments in oil and gas are record high, or that their renewable energy production is not on track to help the company drastically cut their emissions by 2050.
Powerful oil companies like Equinor have huge marketing and sponsorship budgets. Equinor pay for billboards all around Norway, ads in popular newspapers and on social media. Reportedly, Equinor is able to write-off 78 percent of its advertising costs, something that has been widely criticised by environmental campaigners and opposition parties.
Why greenwashing is problematic
Greenwashing is problematic because it allows the fossil fuel industry to carry on as before, while pretending to take climate action. It gives the industry social licence by creating a misleading perception of the company’s climate ambitions and the steps they’re taking to be aligned with climate science.
Equinor is an aggressive oil company that continues to invest billions in new oil and gas projects, which will push us closer to parts of our world becoming uninhabitable. It’s important that Equinor, along with other oil companies, are being called out for greenwashing.
Equinor’s greenwashing has been heavily criticised for misleading the public. Here are a few of these ads and examples of how Equinors misleading advertising is greenwashing.
Greenwashing examples in Equinor’s adverts
1. Equinor's advertisement found guilty of misleading content
In December 2023, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found Equinor guilty of misleading advertising. In the advert, which was published in The Economist magazine, Equinor stated that wind, oil, gas, carbon capture is all part of the broader energy picture. Further, the ad claimed “Equinor has been delivering energy solutions to the UK for 40 years, and we are now working to help the UK achieve a smooth energy transition […] we’re producing the oil and gas the UK needs now; and will be powering millions more homes with wind, capturing and storing carbon safely […]. It’s broad energy for a brighter future.” [1]
In its decision, the ASA wrote that the advert gives the impression that carbon capture and storage (CCS) and energy from wind power make up a significant part of Equinor’s business activity, alongside oil and gas. The truth is that more than 99 percent of the energy Equinor produces is fossil fuels.
The ASA stated that Equinor’s advert also was misleading because it left out relevant information about the collective environmental damage of Equinors business activities. The advertising authority ruled that Equinor is not allowed to use the advert they published in The Economist again. They also asked Equinor to ensure that future adverts with environmental claims do not mislead by omitting important information about how little renewable energy the company actually produces.
In this ad, the focus on wind power, green transition are clear examples of greenwashing. A reader of this ad, unaware of the fact that Equinor’s energy production remains at 99 percent fossil fuels, would believe that Equinor is investing a lot of money in wind power. That is exactly Equinors intention with this ad, appearing greener and more committed to the green renewable energy transition than they actually are.
2. Misleading advert about gas
This was not the first time the ASA ruled an Equinor ad as misleading. In 2019 Equinor was asked to remove an advert on the London underground which claimed Equinor is “the low carbon energy just over the horizon” and “Equinor is Britain's biggest supplier of gas - and a key provider of UK wind power too.” The reasoning behind the agency's ruling was because gas cannot be considered as a low carbon energy source.
The advert was appealed to the ASA, which concluded in the autumn of 2019 that it was misleading to imply that gas has low carbon emissions. They asked Equinor to remove the advert. Equinor told the Financial Times that they will not use it again.
This ad is an example where Equinor clearly is misusing the words “low carbon”, to create a positive image of themselves amongst the British public.
3. Equinor's 50th anniversary video
For Equinor's 50th anniversary in 2022, the oil company made a lavish commercial to celebrate their long history as an oil and gas provider.
In the 1 minute and 30 seconds long video, Equinor thanked, amongst other things, the sea and the wind for being part of the “oil adventure”. At the 1 minute mark, the company thanked “those who never stop challenging us,” referring to environmental organisations and climate advocates. In the video, Equinor used images of young people demonstrating, with signs and banners calling for climate action. At the end of the video, the voice over said “now we need you more than ever to reach our climate targets.”
This video was strongly criticised by Greenpeace and Young Friends of the Earth Norway (Natur og Ungdom) for using images of children and young people fighting for their future, while the company continues to drill for oil and gas which is destroying the planet for future generations.
Furthermore, the fact that Equinor is stating they need the environmental movement to help them achieve their climate targets, is pure deception. For decades, the environmental movement has pressured Equinor to end all new oil and gas expansion. Yet Equinor continues to ignore climate science and how their industry is fuelling global warming and climate chaos.
By alluding that they want to listen to the people challenging them, Equinors portrays themselves as an ethical company that listens to critical voices. However, by continuing to drill for oil and gas, Equinor has made it clear they are not taking the climate crisis seriously, and do not intend to reach their climate goals. Fossil fuels are the biggest cause of climate change. By continuing to drill for oil and gas, Equinor prioritises short-term profits over a liveable future.
4. Equinor advert claimed huge oil field helps reduce CO2 emissions
Before and after Equinor’s Rosebank oil field was approved by the British authorities in September 2023, the oil company ran several advertising campaigns in the UK. Equinor claimed, among other things, that developing Rosebank is partly contributing to “reducing overall CO2 emissions.” It was the Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen who first wrote about this.
However, claiming that Rosebank, the largest undeveloped oil field in the UK, contributes to lowering CO2 emissions is quite bold. Given that the field is estimated to contain as much as 500 million barrels of oil, such a statement is clearly a lie. If burned, the oil and gas from the field could produce more CO2 emissions than the annual emissions of the world's 28 low income countries, which is equivalent to 700 million people in the global south.
The British environmental organisation WWF UK considered Equinor’s claims to be highly misleading and filed a complaint against Equinor's advertising with the ASA in December 2023. The case is now under review.
5. Press release featuring renewable energy power plant
This case is not an ad, but another great example of Equinor’s attempts at greenwashing their business activities. In June this year, Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) criticised one of Equinor’s press releases. The press release in question mentioned that Equinor is expanding their renewable energy portfolio with a new solar energy plant in Poland. However, the solar energy plant would produce a very small part of Equinors energy production – overall the energy generated from this solar plant would only make up 0,005 percent of the company's overall energy production.
It is obvious that Equinor would not have sent out a press release of any new oil and gas activities making up that little of their energy production.
This is a clear example of where Equinor is greenwashing their business activity, by proudly releasing a press release about a renewable energy power plant that will have a microscopic impact on Equinor’s overall emissions. By doing this, Equinor is making the public believe they invest more in renewable energy than they actually do.
Oil companies’ misleading ads are dangerous
Equinor is one of many oil and gas companies guilty of greenwashing their ads. Huge companies like Shell, ExxonMobil, Total and Chevron are also guilty of heavily greenwashing their advertisement campaigns, while all planning to continue to expand and increase their fossil fuel production in the future.
Challenging how the fossil fuel industry presents themselves is crucial to ensure that the industry is held accountable. If they present themselves as green and committed to renewable energy, people will start believing what they see. This is how misleading ads are dangerous. Oil companies are the biggest driving forces behind global warming and as the UN Secretary General António Guterres called them, “the godfathers of climate chaos”.
In recent years there has been more focus on exposing misleading ads and how oil companies are greenwashing their business activities.
Guterres has been outspoken about fossil fuel companies and how dangerous their advertisement campaigns can be. He has called for a ban on fossil fuel ads, and for the media to stop giving them the space to advertise. Guterres has called for a similar ban on fossil fuel ads as for tobacco adverts.This is because fossil fuels are a threat to human health like tobacco is.
Equinor is a powerful company and has the resources and capital to pay for huge advertisement campaigns. Therefore, it is crucial that we are able to expose their misleading communications, as shown in the examples above.
Footnotes:
[1] The Advertising Standards Authority’s ruling on Equinor ASA