In honour of the Oscars, we present 10 awards for dodgy environmental performance:
1. The Duff Statistics of the Year award goes to... the Local Government Association of the United Kingdom for claiming that 98.4% of collected recyclables are correctly sorted by consumers. Which is obviously nonsense.
2. The Cynical Greenwash Award goes to... Cadbury Schweppes for announcing a new range of 'eco-eggs' for Easter which have cut down on plastic and cardboard, at the same time as moving production to Poland, adding 7 million extra food miles to get them to the main market in the UK.
3. The Missing the Point Award goes to... ASDA, the British arm of Wal-Mart, for claiming that it needs to build even more stores to keep the British food industry competitive. This is in a market where four corporate giants (including ASDA) have 2,600 stores and 70,000,000 square feet of store space.
4. The Oops Sorry Award goes to... the United Nations for vastly under estimating the CO2 emissions from international shipping. Apparently it is nearly three times greater than originally thought.
5. The Making a Killing whilst Destroying the Planet Award goes to... Rio Tinto, the global mining corporation. According to their own figures, they produce 28 million tonnes of CO2 a year, which is more than Cuba. Overall, the mining industry is said to produce about 21% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time they have announced a $US 7.44 billion profit in 2007.
6. The Desperately Seeking Oil Award goes to... the Canadian government for allowing continued extraction of petroleum from the tar sands - recently labelled 'the most destructive project on earth'.
7. The Richard Branson massive eco-publicity for Technology with Dubious Environmental Benefit Award goes to... Virgin Atlantic for test-flying aircraft with a bio-fuel made from coconut and babassu oil. According to Branson, future planes will run on algae from sewage plants. Do we smell stinky excrement?
8. The We Never Believed it in the First Place Award goes to oil company BP who having spent years persuading us that they were Beyond Petroleum have now decided that maybe they're not and have reduced their renewables business in a cost cutting exercise.
9. The Owww Diddums Award goes to Porsche who are taking the London Mayor to court for daring to impose a £25/$50 daily charge on use of their pointless cars in the London congestion zone. Porsche claim that the charge is 'simply unjust'. Which is fair - rich people who spend large amounts of money on luxury cars with engines that produce high levels of pollution should be immune from the consequences, clearly.
10 And finally, the Liar, liar pants on fire Award goes jointly to... the Heartland Foundation (which has no connections with the petroleum industry at all) for organising a climate conference without any climate scientists and... the US Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works for doggedly sticking to their story despite overwhelming odds. We like the way that they've managed to dig up 400 scientists who support their position from some really obscure places.
