In today’s Guardian, Fred Pearce calls out BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” greenwash.

He states:

“BP likes to say that it is investing $1.5bn (£980,000) a year in ‘alternative energy’. True, I am sure. But that word ‘alternative’ is clever. Delve a little further and it turns out that BP’s alternative energy division includes not just wind and solar and biofuels but also natural gas-fired power stations. Natural gas may be less polluting than coal and oil, but at the end of the day it’s a fossil fuel filling the atmosphere with CO2. Alternative? Not by my definition.”

He goes on:

“Also sheltering in the alternative energy division is BP’s ‘emissions assets business’, which makes money out of carbon trading, and a venture capital unit. But even if we lump all this ‘alternative’ activity together, it still only makes up 7% of the company’s planned $21bn (£13.85bn) investment this year. The remaining 93% is oil, spiced up with some coal.”

Read the full article – Greenwash: BP and the myth of a world ‘Beyond Petroleum’