Greenwash & Public Relations

Bayern Munich, Germany’s most famous soccer team, ended its 5-year sponsorship contract with Qatar Airways, after fans spoke out strongly about human and migrant worker abuses in Qatar. Human rights groups say the Qatari government (which owns the airline) turned a blind eye to abuses during the massive construction spree for the 2022 World Cup tournament. Read More

Enel began construction of Windpeshi, a proposed 205-megawatt wind farm in the La Guajira desert on the ancestral land of the Wayúu Indigenous people in Colombia, in 2021. After two years of blockades and protests, Enel decided to suspend construction indefinitely. The company plans to sell the site if it can find a buyer. Read More

Fossil fuel giant BP has provided millions to sponsor the British Museum since 1996. Protests by activists from organizations like Culture Unstained, Extinction Rebellion and Greenpeace has cast this relationship in an unfavorable light. Internal memos uncovered by the media suggest that this sponsorship will not be renewed at the end of 2023. Read More

The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is one of the windiest locations in the world. Located in Oaxaca state, México, it has been historically famous as the shortest distance between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Today it is also the location of major conflict between Indigenous communities and wind energy companies. Read More

A vast tree planting project in the Batéké plateau of the Republic of the Congo, near the border with Gabon, funded by fossil fuel company TotalEnergies to offset company greenhouse gas emissions, has displaced local communities from using their traditional lands. Read More

Permian Proud, a recently launched news website, may seem like any other local newspaper at first glance, providing stories on the people of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. A closer look, however, shows that the site is a propaganda machine intended to improve fossil fuel giant Chevron’s image. Read More

For almost 30 years, oil and gas giant Santos has sponsored the annual multicultural arts festival in Darwin, Northern Territory. After a group of artists, First Nations representatives and philanthropists offered A$200,000 for the festival to cancel the sponsorship in 2023, the company agreed to withdraw.  Read More

Tamson Hatuikulipi, a key actor in the scandal over bribes paid by Samherji, Iceland’s largest fishing company, to obtain fishing quotas in Namibia, is appearing before the Windhoek High Court in the hope of getting out of jail. “I disagree that I was part of a corrupt scheme,” Tamson Hatuikulipi told the court last month. “All my books are up to date, and all relevant invoices are traceable.” Read More

Goldman Sachs bank is a top target of a major new investigation by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) into the “greenwashing” of investment funds to fool investors. They aren't the only ones: Bank of New York Mellon and Deutsche Bank have also been investigated. At stake is the definition of what constitutes high ratings for 'environmental, social, and corporate governance' (ESG) funds which is not defined in U.S. law. Read More

Pascoe Sabido, a campaigner with Corporate Europe Observatory,* speaks by video with CorpWatch about the annual meeting of the countries that have ratified the United Nations Climate Change Convention that is currently taking place in Glasgow, Scotland. Read More