Water companies in England ‘use greenwashing playbook to hide environmental harm’
Water companies in England ‘use greenwashing playbook to hide environmental harm’
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Researchers say companies have prolonged injustice and exaggerated cost of solving infrastructure problems. Water companies are adopting disinformation tactics similar to those used by the fossil fuel and tobacco industries with the widespread use of greenwashing to downplay the environmental harm they cause, a study says.
Environmental scientists analysed the communications of the nine main water and sewerage companies in England, and compared them with a framework of 28 greenwashing tactics employed, researchers say, by the tobacco, alcohol, fossil fuels and chemical industries.
The water companies have adopted 22 of these tactics to downplay environmental harm, misrepresent information, undermine scientific research, shift blame and delay action, the researchers say. The lead author of the research, which was published on Monday in the journal Nature Water, Prof Alex Ford, of the University of Portsmouth’s school of the environment and life sciences and institute of marine sciences, said: “Water and sewage companies have prolonged environmental injustice by using a playbook of tactics other large polluters have relied upon in the past to mislead the public and influence government agencies or laws.”.
The research suggests water companies have softened the language around raw sewage discharges by rebranding sewage treatment facilities as “water recycling centres”. They have also described sewage overflows as “heavily diluted rainwater” even when untreated sewage was present and posed a threat to public health.
