The new tracker shows Malaysia to be the region’s hotspot for greenwash, with oil and gas major Petronas being flagged for making exaggerated or dubious green claims more than any other company.
RimbaWatch, a Kuala Lumpur-based non-profit, said the Zero Greenwashing Alliance Guidelines and Database aims to discourage greenwashing and nudge companies to develop credible climate and environmental targets. The platform – which RimbaWatch hopes will be used by members of the public to report greenwashing – has identified 17 cases in Southeast Asia since the beginning of 2020.
Among the cases listed, 12 occurred in Malaysia, four in Singapore and one in Brunei.
The database is dominated by fossil fuel-related firms. For example, Malaysia oil and gas giant Petronas is flagged for greenwashing more than any other company; the database lists five occasions in the last five years, and highlights how it had misled consumers over the extent of its decarbonisation efforts.
Southeast Asia’s greenwashing brands
Petronas
The Malaysian oil and gas major was flagged for having an advertisement featuring misleading decarbonisation claims banned in the UK, questionable net zero targets that exclude Scope 3 emissions, positioning its carbon capture gas facility as green, marketing fossil gas as “carbon neutral, as well as positioning fracking as an activity that does no environmental harm.
Shell
The multinational oil and gas firm featured on the greenwash database for promoting fossil fuel extraction powered by renewable energy in Malaysia and claiming to produce “carbon neutral” liquified natural gas by buying carbon offsets.
Chevron
The oil major’s Singapore operation claimed its service was carbon neutral because carbon offsets were purchased.
Grab
The Singapore-based ride-hailer claimed its passengers could ride carbon neutral by contributing to a carbon project of disputed credibility.
Bursa Carbon Exchange
Malaysia’s stock exchange operator auctioned renewable energy credits generated by projects linked to human rights abuses.
Mini
The carmaker’s advertising claim that its electric marque generated “zero carbon emissions” was false, as Malaysia’s grid is mostly run on fossil fuels.
Mercedes-Benz
The German car brand erroneously told Malaysian consumers that its EV range produced “zero emissions”.
Maybank
The Malaysian bank’s credit card offering claimed that consumers could neutralise their emissions using carbon offsets.
City Energy
The Singapore brand formerly known as CityGas claimed that consumers could “go green” with its gas-powered water heaters.
Sphiere
Brunei IT firm made carbon neutrality claims based on questionable tree-planting carbon offsetting scheme.
Majlis Bandaraya Shah Alam
Shah Alam City Council claimed the Malaysian city was “low carbon” without evidence.
Source: Zero Greenwashing Alliance Database (1 January 2020 to today)
Shell is the next most commonly identified brand in the study. The British oil major’s communications were flagged three times – for promoting the extraction of fossil fuels using renewable energy and claiming to produce “carbon neutral” liquified natural gas by buying carbon offsets.
Other cited greenwashing cases involved banks, transport companies and a government agency (see box), with cases involving non-credible carbon offsets and renewable energy certificates, inadequate net zero targets, or zero impact product claims. The database includes responses from the firms and brands listed, allowing companies 10 working days to respond to any assessment.
RimbaWatch director Adam Farhan told Eco-Business that there have likely been “hundreds, if not thousands” of cases of greenwashing in Southeast Asia over the period of investigation, and those highlighted do not yet represent a comprehensive review of corporate communications across the region.
He noted that the most harmful cases of greenwashing in Southeast Asia to date lead consumers into believing that using ride-hailing applications have no environmental impact if they purchase carbon offsets.
Another worrying trend is the promotion of “false” solutions such as natural gas as an essential bridge fuel and carbon capture technology that lead consumers and policymakers into believing that expanding fossil fuel production is not only possible but beneficial to mitigating emissions which are driven by those same fuels to begin with, Farhan said.
The database currently only includes cases in three countries, although RimbaWatch and project partner Greenpeace Malaysia plan to expand its research to cover other Southeast Asian nations.
According to Eco-Business’s own reporting, three cases of greenwashing in the palm oil and pulp and paper sector have been recorded in Indonesia and one in Vietnam concerning air travel since 2020.
Why has Southeast Asia been slow to police greenwashing?
Last year, Australia was the only country in Asia Pacific to punish corporates for greenwashing in the courts. Jurisdictions including the European Union, Peru, Colombia and India have developed legally binding and non-binding regulations and guidance which specifically define the sort of claims which constitute greenwashing, but no country in Southeast Asia has developed such guidelines to date.
Farhan commented that in Malaysia’s case, regulatory action on greenwashing has been slow partly because consumer rights is “a relatively nascent concept”.
There are gaps in Malaysia’s consumer protection legislation, which does not explicitly address greenwashing or respond effectively to contemporary environmental challenges, he said.
“While there is no shortage of aggrieved consumers in Malaysia, the journey from grievance to legal redress is fraught with challenges. Historically, legal outcomes in ‘David versus Goliath’ scenarios – such as individuals taking on governments – have not always been favourable, which may discourage individuals from pursuing justice,” he said.
Farhan cited a forthcoming research paper by legal researchers Kuberan Hansrajh Kumaresan and Benjamin Franta of the Climate Litigation Lab, which points out that Malaysia’s Consumer Protection Act effectively confines complaints to the Consumer Tribunal as the primary forum for redress; however, the tribunal lacks the authority to issue declarations or injunctions that could permanently stop greenwashing campaigns.
Farhan also noted that the powers of self-regulatory industry bodies such as the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore were limited beyond ruling that an advertisement is greenwashing, and rarely are able to impose fines for infractions.
“We believe that greater provisions for penalties need to be developed, such as an act which specifically governs the making of environmental claims,” he told Eco-Business.
Farhan predicted that Singapore would be first to take serious steps to regulate sustainability communications, followed by other jurisdictions where consumer awareness on greenwashing is high.
Singapore was the first country in Southeast Asia to remove advertising that was deemed to be greenwashing, with a campaign for airline VietJet taken down this year for claiming its fleet is “eco-friendly”.
“We believe that the first step in seriously addressing greenwashing is to simply define it at a national level, and ensure that definitions of greenwashing are as granular as possible, covering different types of commonly-greenwashed claims, such as aspirational net zero targets and offsets,” said Farhan.
Greenwashing guidelines
The Zero Greenwashing Alliance’s Green Claims Guide provides brands with advice on how to avoid greenwashing, using the United Nations Environment Programme guidelines for providing product sustainability information as the basis, and referencing nine regulations and guidance from other countries.
The documented greenwashing cases in Southeast Asia most commonly breach Zero Greenwashing Alliance’s guidelines in two ways: making environmental claims based on carbon offsets and hiding or omitting material information in a claim.
The guidelines emerges a year before the European Union is to ban environmental claims such as “carbon neutral”, “natural”, “eco” or “environmentally-friendly” without verification in a bid to crack down on greenwashing.
