The Global Greenwashing Report #8

Welcome back to The Global Greenwashing Report, where the only thing scarier than a demonic possession is dispossession by greedy companies and individuals. Each week I'll bring you the latest news, views, and trends in the world of greenwashing.

This Week’s Greenwashing Big Three

1. Amazon's Pesky Water Problem

What happens when billionaires control information? They hide what doesn't suit them.

A leaked internal memo from Amazon Web Services just exposed one of the most brazen greenwashing schemes in tech. The world's largest data centre operator deliberately concealed 93% of its water consumption from public view, all to protect its reputation.

In 2021, Amazon consumed 105 billion gallons of water. That's enough to supply nearly 1 million U.S. households annually. But they reported using “just” 7.7 billion gallons per year, 7% of their actual water footprint.

The leaked document shows executives actively debating whether to report "secondary" water use like that consumed generating electricity for data centres. One exec put it bluntly: "transparency is a one-way door." One month later they launched their Water Positive campaign with a promise to "return more water than it uses" by 2030. Sounds noble, right? Except their target, reducing primary use to 4.9 billion gallons, conveniently excludes the 97.3 billion gallons of secondary water consumption.

It gets worse. Half of their $109 million in "water replenishment" offsets overlap with regulatory obligations or operational perks, like making more water available for their own future data centres. They're claiming credit for what they're legally required to do or what benefits them anyway.

While Amazon refuses to disclose total water usage, their competitors Microsoft and Google publish detailed water consumption data. Amazon knows what transparency looks like. They're choosing to be opaque.

Even a former Amazon water sustainability manager, Nathan Wangusi, admitted the company spends "a lot of time creating methodologies that are used to obfuscate the water footprint." Think about that. The person whose job was sustainability is calling out the company for deliberately hiding the truth.

This isn't just corporate spin. It's calculated deception from the top down. Jeff Bezos's company, run by billionaire executives, is expanding AI infrastructure at breakneck speed while actively concealing the environmental cost from the communities bearing the burden. They're building new data centres in areas where water is already scarce, all while claiming to be "water positive."

It’s the classic billionaire playbook: Control the narrative. Report only what makes you look good. When caught, call leaked documents "obsolete" or claim they "misrepresent" your strategy. All that’s because honesty isn’t in their best interest.

2. Paris Makes History, Again

Last week, Paris made history (and no, not because of the diamond heist). TotalEnergies became the first oil major in the world to get convicted for greenwashing. It shouldn’t have come as a shock given the fossil fuel giant slapped "Energies" on its name and plastered wind turbines across its ads.

The court’s verdict? Stop lying about your "net zero by 2050" dreams when 97% of your 2024 revenue still comes from fossil fuels. Total also must remove all misleading claims from its website and post a link to the legal decision for 180 days, or face penalties of up to 20,000 euros a day. They also have to pay €24,000 in damages and €15,000 in legal costs to the NGOs who called out the BS.

And they’re not alone.

It seems like Europe's had enough of the greenwashing. KLM lost in Dutch court in March 2024 for painting an "overly rosy picture" through its "Fly Responsibly" campaign. This past March, Lufthansa got banned from advertising misleading CO2 offset claims. Italy slapped Shein with a €1 million fine in August for vague sustainability claims and German authorities ruled against Deichmann, one of Europe’s largest shoe retailers, for advertising over 1,000 products as sustainable when they weren’t.

Australia's setting records, too. ASIC secured a $12.9 million penalty against Vanguard for lying about ESG screens in their "Ethically Conscious" fund. Mercer got hit for $11.3 million weeks earlier. Glad bags had to pay an $8.2 million fine for lying about using recycled materials.

Even the US is joining in. The Attorney General for West Virginia is leading a 15-state investigation into greenwashing by big tech firms. Key to this will be whether the companies can substantiate their reliance on carbon credits to claim renewable energy prowess.

Courts worldwide are done with corporate green theatre. Whether it's airlines claiming offsets make flying climate-neutral, fast fashion brands boasting about emissions targets while pumping out more pollution, or fossil fuel companies wrapping themselves in solar panel imagery, courts are calling it what it is: fraud.

Companies love to talk about their 2050 commitments. 2050’s far enough away, though, that most current CEOs will be retired and collecting pensions. Now we’re finally seeing a bit of a reckoning. Sure, it’s just a drop in the bucket for a lot of these mega companies. But it’s a far cry better than where we were just a few years ago.

3. A Looming Credibility Problem

The world's quickly developing a credibility problem.

Last week, a Queensland anti-renewables group was caught submitting government inquiry responses riddled with AI-generated fake academic papers, non-existent citations, and fabricated research. When questioned, they admitted to using AI because it was "the most efficient way to review everything properly.” Except they didn’t review anything themselves it seems.

Don’t forget two weeks ago Deloitte was ordered to pay back $440,000 to the Australian Government after their report on welfare compliance was found to contain AI-generated hallucinations, including a fabricated quote from a Federal Court judge. These are basic academic integrity failures that would get a first-year university student expelled.

And this isn't just an Australian problem. In the U.S., lawyers have been sanctioned for submitting fake case precedents generated by ChatGPT. In July 2025 alone, over 50 cases involving fake legal citations generated by AI tools were publicly reported across multiple jurisdictions. Media outlets have faced backlash for AI-generated content with factual errors, and academic publishers have retracted thousands of papers amid AI-fabrication concerns.

Here's what really gets me, though. Some of these submissions are shaping environmental and social policy. They're documents that influence legislation affecting millions of people and the future of our planet. I’m not being hyperbolic, either. Nationals’ leader David Littleproud welcomed and cited the anti-renewable AI report in September, using their analysis to validate party policy on renewables. Political decisions are being made based on AI hallucinations.

Based on all this, we’ve got to face a few uncomfortable truths.

1. The verification gap is systemic. The UK's Financial Reporting Council already warned that Big Four firms are failing to monitor how AI affects audit quality. If the biggest consultancies in the world can't get this right, what hope do smaller organisations have?

2. The incentive structure is broken. When your business model rewards billable hours and rapid turnaround times, AI becomes irresistible.

3. Trust is evaporating fast. Every fake citation, every hallucinated reference, every fabricated quote erodes public confidence not just in AI, but in the institutions and experts we rely on for truth.

This is like greenwashing's evil twin, "credibilitywashing." You get all the appearance of rigorous research and expert analysis without any of the actual work.

The solution isn't to ban AI from policy work (well...). It's to demand radical transparency, mandatory verification protocols, and real accountability when institutions get it wrong. And maybe we should rethink whether "efficiency" should be the driving metric for work that determines our collective future. Because right now, we're letting hallucinating algorithms write policy while the planet burns.

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Your Weekend Reading

Bill Gates, "Three Truths About Climate."

That'll be enough to keep you busy through Monday.

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Climate Plunder

Each fortnight, the average billionaire’s super yacht and private jet will emit more pollution than the average person does in a lifetime.

That’s why (among other reasons) I’ve partnered with Oxfam International to get the word out about their new report, “Climate Plunder: How a Powerful Few Are Locking the World into Disaster.”

You can download a full copy of the report here.

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There's just three short months to go until Australia's mandatory climate reporting begins. Is your organisation ready to prove every sustainability claim you've made? I help companies build the systems infrastructure that turns compliance obligations into competitive advantages. Visit johnpabon.com to discover how authentic capability development can help your organisation capitalise on the new regulatory environment.

Value in these insights? Share with your board and leadership team. The organisations that prepare systemically, not just procedurally, today will be the ones leading their sectors tomorrow.