A Skeptic’s Guide to Environmental Claims

We are constantly hearing about "green" initiatives to make things more efficient, more circular, less wasteful, and more productive. It is implied that such initiatives will reduce global environmental impacts. But that's not how things actually work out.

It is hard to find a historical case where simply making things more efficient led to less global demand on Earth's limited space and resources. We always use the savings to claim more ecological space for human activities. That's why all sustainability claims, based on product-level efficiency, must be accompanied by a call for limits to growth. Otherwise they are just business as usual.

Here is a slide I presented (virtually) at last week's SCORAI (Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative) Conference hosted by Wageningen University & Research. It presents some classic sustainability claims that I've captured on social media; textbook cases of efficiency hype with no mention of economic growth, rebound effects, or the Jevons Paradox. Some of them made by prominent voices, Unilever and The White House Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy included!

I am working on a "Skeptic's Guide to Environmental Claims" that will examine this further. Being skeptical is not being pessimistic, it's being critical of current standards so we can send them in a new and improved direction.