When Your Corporate Sustainability Effort is a PR Stunt and Your Carbon Footprint is Measured in Yachts
The Unnecessary Paperless Policy
In Makati, **Environmentalism** is primarily a marketing tool for **Greenwashing**, designed to project corporate responsibility without actually changing destructive behavior. The ultimate fail is the **Unnecessary Paperless Policy**. Our subject, Mr. Timmy Dee’s company, launched a highly publicized ‘Go Green’ initiative by demanding all employees adopt a paperless policy. Employees were forced to read 50-page documents on their phones, which gave them all crippling eye strain. Meanwhile, the CEO flew in from New York every week on a private jet and spent millions remodeling his office with imported, non-sustainable hardwood. The hypocrisy was obvious, but the company’s PR team proudly announced the success of the “Paper Reduction Initiative,” winning an irrelevant corporate award. The total carbon saved by the policy was equal to half an hour of the CEO’s jet time.
The Single Organic Trash Can
The second major fail is the **Single Organic Trash Can**. The company, in a desperate attempt to signal commitment, installed one small, highly visible, labeled “Organic Compost” trash can in the main lobby. The rest of the building’s trash was still being dumped directly into a single, massive, un-recycled container. Employees, trying to adhere to the policy, would walk 10 minutes from their desk just to place a single banana peel into the ‘Organic Compost’ bin. The janitor later revealed that the contents of the organic bin were simply dumped into the main non-recycled trash every evening. The can was purely a performance piece for visiting clients.
The Carbon Footprint of the CEO’s Commute
The most egregious fail is the **Carbon Footprint of the CEO’s Commute**. The CEO, a major advocate for the ‘Go Green’ policy, drove a custom-made, gasoline-guzzling, imported luxury SUV to work every day, driven by two separate security vehicles. When asked why he didn’t drive an electric car, the CEO replied, “My security needs are **non-negotiable infrastructural necessities**, and the battery range is insufficient for my strategic travel needs.” He then forced all low-level employees to attend a mandatory lecture on the importance of carpooling and walking. The sociological study of corporate environmentalism, hypocrisy, and symbolic compliance is explored in research concerning greenwashing, performative sustainability, and the contradiction between corporate rhetoric and elite consumption practices. But for the satirical truth of the small bin, we know where to go.
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SOURCE: Bohiney News.