Paris (AFP)

Internet, petroleum and agrifood giants are multiplying the promise of reducing their environmental footprint and adapting to a low-carbon economy. But many of these ads are greenwashing, warn experts.

In Davos, where entrepreneurs and politicians for the 50th World Economic Forum are meeting this week, the climate emergency is on everyone's lips. "Everyone speaks only that" and "there is a real sincerity", assures AFP Alain Roumilhac, boss of Manpower France.

But if some initiatives are welcomed, others seem doubtful, even misleading, say specialists.

The most popular idea among business leaders to show their commitment against global warming, including among big oil groups like Shell, BP or ENI, is to plant trees that absorb and store carbon.

"We are facing a global climate crisis and trees are one of the best ways to capture carbon," Marc Benioff, boss of software publisher Salesforce, told Davos.

Even climate-skeptical US President Donald Trump has gotten into it, this week supporting the "1,000 billion trees" initiative (to plant or save), based on a study by Swiss researchers published last year and welcomed by the world press as a quick fix.

The idea would be to cover the equivalent of nearly one billion hectares of trees, an area larger than the United States.

Many companies have jumped at this opportunity to offset their emissions with trees, without reducing them.

But the Swiss study, published in Science, has been widely criticized by scientists around the world, four of them calling it in the same review "scientifically incorrect and dangerously misleading".

"Yes, heroic reforestation can be useful, but we must stop saying that there is a natural solution to the use of fossil fuels. There is none. Sorry," said Myles Allen, professor of ecosystem science at Oxford.

According to dozens of scientists, the study has many flaws, including an overestimation of the CO2 absorption capacity of trees, and does not mention the problem of competition between these plantations and the agricultural land necessary to feed 10 billion humans in 2050.

Faced with the climate emergency, "sometimes climate policies are respectable. But often, especially when they come from the financial sector, they are too progressive and on the sole basis of volunteering," comments Greenpeace boss Jennifer Morgan, also present in Davos.

- Carbon offset -

"Greenwashing is misinformation, a blurring of reality and, given the climate emergency, we have no time for the talk or hypocrisy," she insists.

Microsoft announced last week a plan to not only achieve carbon neutrality in ten years, but also to offset all of its carbon footprint since its inception in 1975.

However, this objective cannot be achieved without "carbon offsetting", by planting a lot of trees and using technologies not yet developed to extract large-scale CO2 from the air.

Without this, the American company's CO2 emissions - estimated at 59 million tonnes per year - would only be halved by 2030.

But environmentalists mostly point the finger at Microsoft's deals with gas and energy giants like ExxonMobil, to which it provides tools to optimize fossil extraction and supply forecasts.

"You simply cannot assure on the one hand supporting an ambitious climate action and on the other continuing to make friends with industries that are at the heart of this crisis", denounces Sriram Madhusoodanan, from the NGO Corporate Accountability .

This type of behavior is widespread in all sectors.

For example, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which brings together industrialists, is investing a billion dollars in recycling, while spending even more to build new plastic production plants.

In addition, corporate promises are also often accompanied by intense lobbying with governments to limit regulation, according to some experts.

"An approach based solely on voluntary and unregulated corporate responsibility facilitates the spread of greenwashing", according to a study by Lucia Gatti, from Svizzera Italiana University.

But governments are aware of this situation, with some imposing fines on groups who misuse the word "green" on their products.

In December, the European Union strengthened the rules so that an investment can be described as "environmentally sustainable".

"EU green standards mean people can no longer be offered to buy fake green investments," said William Todts of the NGO Transport & Energy.

© 2020 AFP