Nelson,
“Holy wow!”
That’s how Greenpeace Canada’s Senior Researcher & Writer, Nola Poirier, responded when she logged into work one morning late last month.
Every few weeks for the past year, Poirier has checked the website of the Pathways Alliance: the most powerful oil lobby group in the country.
On the morning of June 20th, she saw something surprising: All content from their website had disappeared. All that remained was a single paragraph of text.
Why did Canada’s biggest oil lobby delete its entire website, social media and advertising presence? The answer has something to do with you and other Greenpeace supporters…
The Pathways Alliance is a group of Canada's six biggest oil sands companies. Together, they control a whopping 95% of Canada’s oil sands production and about 63% of Canada’s total oil production.
“On the surface, Pathways have claimed to be on a mission to help fight climate change,” explains Poirier. “But the reality is something different.”
By making false or misleading claims that position oil companies as part of the solution, they hope to gain credibility, benefit from taxpayer funding, and continue destroying the climate.
Pathways’ “Let’s Clear the Air” campaign was a far-reaching advertising blitz that ran on television ads during the FIFA World Cup, the Australian Open and the 2023 Super Bowl. It appeared on trains, buses, and streetcars across Canada and all over Canadian social media.
This and other advertising campaigns claimed the alliance’s “net-zero plan is in motion” — even though that plan fails to account for more than 80% of the members’ emissions.
Early last year, Poirier and the Greenpeace Canada climate team decided to file a complaint against Pathways with Canada’s Competition Bureau for misleading advertising.
In response, the bureau announced it would launch an official inquiry into Pathways’ claims.
“If the inquiry finds that the ads to be false or misleading, Greenpeace and the other applicants have requested that any financial penalty be put towards cleaning up their oil sands pollution,” adds Poirier.
While we don’t yet know the outcome of that investigation, we do know that it’s got Pathways running scared. Their attempt to scrub their online presence is testament to that. In particular, Pathways and various other oil industry members have all deleted content related to the development of carbon capture and storage, because they know they can't back up their claims that it's a potential solution to their emissions.
Pathways has left a single paragraph on their website, blaming the change on Canada’s new “truth in advertising” legislation, which forces companies to prove any environmental claims they make using an internationally recognized methodology.
“This legislation exists so companies can’t invent their own definitions of what it means to be “carbon neutral” or have “net zero emissions” — which is exactly what Pathways have tried to do,” shared Poirier. “This legislation also exists because organizations like Greenpeace are holding companies accountable and making sure they can’t get away with making false greenwashing claims.”
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