Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is wholly owned by the Swedish Government, has been announced as the winner in the Climate Greenwash Award 2009 at a ceremony in Copenhagen.

“Vattenfall, which won with 39% of the vote (about 2000 votes cast), was nominated for “its mastery of spin on climate change, portraying itself as a climate champion while lobbying to continue business as usual, using coal, nuclear power, and pseudo-solutions such as agrofuels and carbon capture and storage (CCS).”

The energy company also played a key role in setting up the World Business Summit on Climate Change through the Combat Climate Change – a lobby group established by Vattenfall to promote the “climate-friendly technologies” such as carbon capture and storage and nuclear power, which are the company’s preferred options for tackling climate change.”

Climate Greenwash Awards Coordinator Kenneth Haar congratulated Vattenfall for their hard (read: dirty) work which resulted in their first place. Haar also gave a special mention the Danish Government for giving these dirty corporations easy access to the climate talks:

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Photo credit: Margaret Anne Clarke

It seems everyone these days is coming out with their own “natural” or “organic” beauty line.  But are they truly what they claim to be?  After all, when a well known company says their stuff is good for you most folks believe them.

Take Victoria’s Secret, for instance, who recently came out with Pink, their new body care line touted as “organic, natural and vegan”.  Since no ingredients were listed anywhere, I set out to do a little investigating.

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In this video George Monbiot, Britain’s leading green commentator, meets with Jeroen van de Veer who is the chief executive of oil giant Shell. Monbiot asks the oil giant about ethics, greenwash advertising, renewable energy investments and gas-flaring in Nigeria.

Click here to watch the interview on the Guardian!

Related News: The latest deadline set by the Nigerian government to stop flaring natural gas from oil wells in the Niger Delta has passed without stopping the flames, which campaigners say are poisoning local people.

According to the Amazon Defense Coalition the petrochemical company Chevron has hired Douglas Southgate, a so called “scientist” and an “environmental economist”, who is affiliated with the Heartland Institute, a climate change denying think tank.

“Based in Chicago, Heartland promotes the idea that there is a “debate” about global warming despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is responsible for it. The Institute also creates research that downplays the dangers of secondhand smoke.”

“Contributions to the Heartland Institute have flowed from the likes of Exxon, Phillip Morris, and the ultraconservative Scaife Foundation. The Institute stopped disclosing its funders in 2006 after it came under attack for producing tailor-made research in support of its industry supporters.”

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Meg ImHolt, intern at Greenpeace USA and a senior at American University and Vice President of the school’s environmental club EcoSense, writes about GM running their “gas-friendly to gas-free” greenwashing campaign at her University. GM wanted to promote their new hybrid and fuel cell cars while getting the “green approval” from the school’s EcoSense club.

“As I write this, GM is feverishly lobbying Congress for $25B that it was supposed to get in exchange for fuel economy increases. The company wants the money now, but without the efficiency strings attached. Do a few hybrid and fuel cell cars compensate for such destructive policies? Do they make up for GM’s opposition to stricter CAFE standards? Or the corporation’s lawsuits against states for limiting car emissions?

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If you live in northern Europe you might have heard about a new “climate manifesto” from Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is wholly owned by the Swedish government.

With this “climate manifesto” Vattenfall is a trying to influence politicians and governments to put a global price on CO2 emissions, support (read financial support) climate friendly technologies and implement climate requirements for products. It all sounds good but this is just another greenwashing campaign from a dirty energy company.

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