Greenwashing is the tendency to use sustainability as a PR stunt rather than as a tangible corporate commitment. Futurewashing is making promises that are far enough away for the people making purported commitments still being around to be held accountable.
Robert Pritchard, Senior Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Technology and telecoms companies have made a clear commitment to delivering sustainability—it is not a ‘nice to have’ but is ‘game stakes’ for doing business. However, setting goals that are many years ahead risks ‘future washing’ or ‘green washing’. A target is well and good, but having regular proof-of-progress timestamps towards these goals is the only way to provide credibility on sustainability.”
Of the global telecoms service providers studied, targets for carbon net-zero ranged from 2025 to 2050, and carbon-neutral from already achieved to 2035, underlining that achieving carbon-neutrality is the easier benchmark, and that net-zero is a more complex challenge.
Pritchard concluded: “An ESG survey by GlobalData, revealed that 43% of telecoms companies and 49% of technology companies considered climate change to be the most important environmental issue to their sector*. This understanding is clearly shown, as, despite economic and supply chain challenges, MNCs and their tech service providers are doing their bit to address sustainability. Further, the UN Conference of the Parties 26 (November 2021 in Scotland) and COP 27 (November 2022 in Egypt) have (and will) help boost awareness of these targets and commitments moving forward.
“Further, sustainability is being productized within these industries, and used as a differentiator in the market. It is not a choice between saving money or saving the planet—it is both. It’s a key tenet of doing business with these customers.”
