Case Study - Greenwash Awards 2016

greenwash 2

FoE Flanders/ Climaxi organised a campaign on greenwashing for a period of 6 months with the engagement of our five local groups. This combined several types of “actions”: info evenings, info stall, public vote, online vote, action training and non-violent direct action.

Which activities were used

Our local groups were invited to nominate a candidate for the greenwash award 2016. They reached out to other organisations to join the campaign.

From June till August the local groups came together to decide which person/organisation or company would be a good candidate to ‘win’ the Greenwash award 2016. Team members facilitated this process and gave more information about what greenwashing can be. Before we had similar campaigns but only including international/big companies who are known internationally. Now we invited the local groups to also search for greenwashing practices on the local level.

In September the campaign was launched to the public through a poll on the website. For each candidate there was an in-depth article written about the reasons for being nominated. There were also 5 cartoons summarizing why this candidate was nominated.

Climaxi organised a 2 days info stall at Manifiesta festival, where people could give a vote . The votes were visualised with coloured counters. In September, October and November we collected more than 2,000 votes (online and via info stalls). At the end of November we held a ceremony to make the winner known. After the ceremony there was an action training giving by the Vredesactie trainers collective. The day after a group of around 10 activists were present at a climate and energy summit to handover the ‘greenwash award’ to the winner.

In January 2017 there was an evaluation with the people most involved in the whole campaign.

Results

– Media attention for the greenwash award and the direct action.

– Active local groups, and a way to bring them all together, unifying aspect.

– Possibility to connect local struggles to a more global struggle.

– A toolkit and a set of events that can be re-used for a next edition.

eu en sofs

Climaxi (Friends of the Earth Flanders) gratefully acknowledges financial assistance from the European Union. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of Friends of the Earth Flanders and cannot be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union. The European Union cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information this document contains.