jig's up from sydney morning herald 20th augustThe green-eyed...

jig's up from sydney morning herald 20th august

[b]The green-eyed monster[/b]

Environmental groups are guarded in welcoming the corporate sector's new love affair with nature, writes Wendy Frew.

CLICK here to switch your home to green energy, says Jackgreen's website. Nature-friendly power - click here for details, says EnergyAustralia. Renewable energy at no extra cost, says Victoria's Red Energy. In an age when business has discovered there is money to be made from being seen to be green, companies are happy to flaunt their green credentials to attract customers.

But green groups are worried the environment is being used as a marketing ploy to cash in on green trends without delivering any real long-term solutions.

For example, the publicly listed Jackgreen company, backed by the boutique investment bank Babcock & Brown, guarantees to provide customers with green electricity at the same cost as electricity sourced from "burnt coal".

In a TV advertisement featuring the actor and Planet Ark ambassador Rebecca Gilling, Jackgreen claims its power reduces greenhouse gases because it is sourced from solar, hydro-electric and wind power.

"Switch now to Jackgreen. You've got nothing to lose. Our environment has everything to gain," says Gilling.

It may be a compelling sales pitch in the face of evidence that Australians are the world's biggest per capita greenhouse gas polluters, but green groups call it "greenwashing".

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has already successfully taken a number of companies to court for misleading the public about their products' green credentials.

The Total Environment Centre, which ran a seminar this week for the corporate sector on "greenwashing", says it seems some companies are now greenwashing their reputations with unsubstantiated claims about their business practices or by using vague terms such as "earth friendly" or "green".

Others are overstating the environmental benefits of their products, while some might have one "green" division but continue business-as-usual in other parts of their operation. The centre's Tony Mohr says green marketing is "much more about your reputation, especially as reputation represents an increasing percentage of your company's value".

Greenwashing is part of a wider debate about a range of ideas being promoted to deal with climate change-inducing greenhouse gases. You can pay a company to plant enough trees to soak up the carbon dioxide emitted by your car, or offset the greenhouse gas pollution associated with the manufacture of your product by investing in clean energy technology.

The environment movement is divided about whether these ideas really help cut greenhouse gas emissions or if we are just paying for our polluting behaviour and carrying on as normal.

"Increasingly, it's just a public relations strategy," says Danny Kennedy, campaigns manager for Greenpeace.

"I think it is good to engage people to do something personally but to pretend this is a solution to climate change is a red herring."

"Carbon-neutral is bandied about as truth but there is not much evidence that our society is cutting its emissions ... all of these strategies defer what we need to do, which is cut coal use and improve energy efficiency."

So-called green electricity is one of the most contentious areas. The Australian energy sector relies heavily on coal, making it responsible for more emissions than anything else. Black coal is our cheapest source of energy. That makes it tough for clean power sources such as wind, solar and new hydro-electric schemes to compete.

As a result of Federal Government regulations, electricity suppliers now offer customers the chance to buy some clean power. While this is a good thing, it isn't enough to substantially expand the renewable energy sector. Only something like a carbon tax will do that.

Green groups say that until renewable energy represents a greater percentage of energy use, we are doing nothing to cut emissions. However, as long as companies are clear about what they are selling, it is a step in the right direction.

That's where Jackgreen comes in. Its website refers to solar and wind power, but before signing a contract with a wind farm recently it was sourcing its power from a mix of old and new hydro-electric schemes, says the company's general manager for strategic operations, Ashleigh Antflick. It hopes to sign other wind power contracts.

Jackgreen charges customers no more for this power than its competitors charge for black power. Antflick told the Herald it could afford to do that because of low overheads.

Renewable energy is usually much more expensive than coal-fired power. However, "old hydro" (sourced from schemes that have fed into the grid since before 1997) is not much more expensive than coal, green groups say. Jackgreen has declined to say exactly how much of its power is sourced from old hydro and because it is a new company, an independent audit will not be done until early next year. Where a company sources its renewable power is important, says the Total Environment Centre's Mohr, because all Australians already buy a small amount of renewable power. A customer switching to an old hydro-power product is not increasing the amount of renewable power in the market, just changing its retailer.

The criticism is unfair, says Antflick. "There is an element [of material] on our website that could be improved and we want to do that," he says, while emphasising that none of Jackgreen's power comes from hydro systems that include large, environmentally unfriendly dams. It also refuses to buy power generated by burning wood.

"Jackgreen is committed to an independent audit to be conducted at the end of each calendar year, to verify that renewable energy has been generated to match our customers' consumption," he adds.

EnergyAustralia's Clean Air product and the Victorian-based Red Energy have also been criticised for marketing their hydro-electricity products as special or different from what people are already using.

Australia's electricity grid sources about 90 per cent of its power from coal, 5 per cent from old hydro and 5per cent from new renewable energy, such as wind.

EnergyAustralia told the Herald every customer making a deliberate decision to buy green energy, irrespective of whether it was old or new, did make a difference. "They have made a conscious decision not to buy black energy and support the growth of traditional forms of generating electricity," said a spokeswoman, Sandra Olsen.

Then there are companies that plant trees for a fee on behalf of motorists and manufacturers. They are accused not of greenwashing but of having a flawed concept.

Critics say planting trees does nothing to address the real problem - polluting energy and transport industries. They say trees are not a secure carbon sink because they can die, be burnt in bushfires or be chopped down.

"CO2 warms the atmosphere for about 100 years so you have to ensure the security of that sink for about the same time," says Anna Reynolds, climate change manager for WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund.

An Australian non-profit organisation called Greenfleet runs a program that enables people to offset their car's CO2 impact on the environment. For $40, Greenfleet will plant 17 native trees on a motorist's behalf.

Greenfleet's executive director, Henry O'Clery, agrees customers are paying for future carbon offsets because it takes time for the trees to grow. But he says the group plants more trees than required to match the CO2 associated with its customers and replants when trees die or are lost to fire.

There is no independent monitoring of how many trees Greenfleet plants or of the company's carbon sink calculations.

"At this stage you have to take it on trust," says O'Clery, who hopes to eventually have the program independently audited.

There is some support, however, for companies such as climate friendly, which encourages energy efficiency and runs a greenhouse gas offset scheme that allows companies to calculate their emissions and then buy certificates from it. Climate friendly uses that money to invest in clean energy sources.

Climate friendly encourages its customers to market themselves as "climate neutral" to boost brand value.

"Telling customers and staff about your actions not only demonstrates your own climate responsibility but also inspires a wider audience to get involved," it says on its website.

The fashion wholesaler Tribal Alliance turned to climate friendly after deciding to do its bit for the environment. The director, Justin Chung, says customers who buy the Sydney company's inhouse JC label pay a premium of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent that the wholesaler uses to buy certificates from climate friendly. JC tags tell shoppers that every garment bought "helps the environment eliminate CO2".

Chung admits it's not a "green" product but says it gives "a subtle hint to the consumer" about doing their bit for the environment.

IT'S NOT EASY BEING CLEAN

Scientific research has shown that concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are increasing average global temperatures and changing the world's climate and weather patterns. Carbon dioxide, a by-product of burning fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum, is a greenhouse gas. But methane (produced when vegetation rots) and nitrous oxide are also a problem. Many of our day-to-day activities produce greenhouse gases but in Australia, where most of our power is sourced from coal, the energy sector is by far the biggest contributor to the problem. Cars, land clearing and landfill are the other significant culprits.

According to the Australian Greenhouse Office:

* For every litre of petrol used, 2.5kilograms of carbon dioxide is released from car exhausts. Diesel is even worse at 2.7 kilograms of CO2 a litre.

* Households generate almost one-fifth of Australia's greenhouse gases - about 15 tonnes per household each year - through everyday activities such as transport, household energy use and the decay of household waste in landfills.

* Industry uses synthetic greenhouse gases in air- conditioning, domestic refrigeration, and in aerosolsand solvents.

* Land clearing is estimated to cause between 10 per cent and 12per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. The gases are produced when bulldozed trees are burnt or rot.

* Air travel is another significant problem. As well as carbon dioxide, planes emit a cocktail of other gases that also contribute to global warming. According to some estimates, the overall effect of air travel on the climate is between two and four times greater than just the carbon dioxide that is produced.