Rob Del Naja of Massive Attack is helping launch a campaign to expose corporate “greenwashing” at COP26. The Bristol native has teamed up with green industrialist, Dale Vince and artist Bill Posters to reveal the practice. They feel this “greenwashing” conveys a false impression or provides misleading information about how a company’s products are more environmentally sound.
To highlight the issue, the trio will drop comprehensive data each day the UN’s Climate Change Conference takes place in Glasgow. To fight the corporate manipulation, Del Naja has unveiled a new website – and accompanying social media accounts – Eco-Bot.net. According to the website: “Eco-Bot.Net’s system collects, visualises, and flags forms of climate change disinformation that exists as content on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.”
Thousands of alleged greenwashing sponsored ads, and content from social media giants, were included within the first drop. Artists claim these ads are “created by the world’s top 100 private and state-owned corporations that are responsible for over 70% of all historic and current global greenhouse gas emissions”.
According to the campaign entitled Eco-Bot, this “is the first time that such a large-scale analysis of corporate greenwashing influence campaigns has been exposed online, and the first time that the public can observe the manipulation of information in real time and map the extent of that disinformation on a daily basis”.
Massive Attack musician, Del Naja feels that the general public “are very much aware of the harm caused by the disinformation that is propagated via social media platforms. This project aims to show that Facebook in particular is responsible for most of the climate disinfo in current circulation and will also reveal the dimensions of the greenwash industrial complex – and the profits it generates for the platforms.
“The cultural and live music sectors have been historically used by major transnational polluters (fast food/airlines/automotive) as public arenas to do their dirty laundry. As artists we have spent decades attempting to persuade promoters and venues to remove unethical, polluting identities and sponsors from live music events. This is the cultural sector’s opportunity to return the favour via this public service intervention.”
Bill Posters adds, “With so much trust and collective perceptions of truth being eroded due to the epidemic of climate change greenwashing and disinformation on social media platforms, Eco-Bot’s AI systems and data visualisations attempt to make the scale of the issue visible and relational for broad public audiences at this crucial moment in human history.
“Mark Zuckerberg is a climate change disinfo pusher. We could say the same thing for Jack Dorsey [Twitter CEO]. Why? Because they both retain sole control or huge influence over the policies on their platforms that amplify and normalise climate disinformation for profit. If they want to retain control or influence, then they must be held accountable. They could easily end most of the harms associated from climate disinformation on their platforms if they wanted to.”
Posters explains that the conceptual flagging system has been built to ask the question: “‘If they can protect people from harms caused by COVID-19 disinfo, then why can’t they do the same for the climate?’”.
Massive Attack previously launched a campaign calling on the government to cut carbon emissions at concerts. Radiohead’s Thom Yorke also backed the initiative. Last November, MA shared a film detailing the climate crisis, and how touring across the world has impacted climate change. The Bristol group along with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, hoped to raise awareness on climate change.
