CLIIMATE CHANGE MINISTER CONGRATULATES THE WAREHOUSE FOR ITS GREENWASHING

Warehouse CEO Nick Grayston with James Shaw.

The Minister for Climate Change has congratulated retailer The Warehouse for its 'commitment and contribution towards reducing New Zealand's greenhouse emissions.' But all The Warehouse has done is buy its 'green credentials' through carbon offsetting.

GIVEN THAT the Minister for Climate Change is under the misimpression that capitalism can save us from the environmental crisis it created in the first place, it comes as no surprise that James Shaw should loudly applaud retailer The Warehouse for supposedly doing its bit to fight climate change. Just to make sure we all got the message, Shaw applauded The Warehouse several times on Twitter.

Shaw said that he welcomed The Warehouse's "commitment and contribution towards reducing New Zealand's greenhouse emissions,"

"Achievements like this, and the leadership being shown… is vital if we are to become a carbon-neutral economy by 2050." he continued, clearly forgetting that the recent Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change says we've got no more than twelve years, or until about 2030, before the planet reaches the point of no return. But 'Mr Corporate Green' and the Ardern government are clearly operating on a more relaxed time schedule.

Although James Shaw would like us to think that this is an example of local capitalism really coming to the party to help avoid an environmental meltdown, The Warehouse actually haven't done anything of any practical consequence - they continue to operate pretty much in the same way that they have always done. All The Warehouse has  done is buy carbon credits in order to 'achieve' carbon neutrality.

This hasn't impressed an environmental group like The Coal Action Network who say that The Warehouse has simply been juggling the figures.

Spokesperson Cindy Baxter said: "New Zealand's system of offsetting and credits has been described by international experts as 'creative accounting'. The problem we've got is that The Warehouse is buying into that.'

She noted that a 2016 report by the Morgan Foundation claimed many of the credits snapped up by New Zealand companies were "hot air" and worthless.

Naomi Klein: Carbon offsetting has allowed corporations to make billions.

The Warehouse, with the active encouragement of James Shaw, are engaged in greenwashing. The company is presenting itself as an environmentally responsible corporate citizen but actually doing little of any real consequence. The retailer is doing  little more than trying to 'neutralise' the environmental impact of its products and activities through carbon offsetting.

While James Shaw might be happy with The Warehouse buying its 'green credentials', all it does is allow the Labour-led government to, yet again, avoid having to make the much more fundamental structural changes that are required to prevent further global warming. But that would mean admitting that its plan for local capitalism to 'transition' to carbon neutrality is fundamentally flawed.

In her book This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein points out that carbon trading schemes have helped corporations make billions—allowing them to directly profit off the degradation of the planet. She argues that we need to break free of market fundamentalism and implement long-term planning, strict regulation of business, more taxation, more government spending and reversals of privatisation to return key infrastructure to public control. Indeed, something like the Green New Deal launched in the United States by congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Unfortunately New Zealand is burdened by parliamentary parties that remained wedded to the market orthodoxy.