How Green Is BP?

Darcy Frey’s article How Green Is BP? covers the marketing campaign to re-brand British Petroleum as an environmentally conscious corporation. Frey makes an honest effort at presenting BP’s efforts in good light, but also points out obvious inconsistencies and skeptically questions their supposedly altruistic efforts. BP’s truly positive efforts of investing in solar and alternative energy research are contrasted with their continued, and far larger, normal business of extracting as much oil as possible from anywhere it can be found. Frey also takes a significant stance on pointing out more of BP’s problems with their campaign such as faltering on ads under slight pressure. More analysis on the true motives of BP’s efforts could have been beneficial to the essay.

This article is interesting because the blatant hypocrisy of BP is so similar to so many environmentalists. Their message seems to be “we have a problem, we want to do something, but this is just the way that it is and at least we are trying.” BP uses this to their advantage. How much different are they from the rest of us who genuinely care and take the steps that we can, but continue to drive, eat meat, and love air conditioning.

BP is in a tight spot, caught between being caring pretenders or ignorant capitalists. I liked Frey’s point that we are coming down so hard on BP’s hypocrisy while Exxon-Mobil funds climate anti-science. Is BP’s marketing genuine and altruistic? Almost certainly not, but the comparison with the rest of the oil industry is an important one. BP’s motives are likely profit driven and their message is highly hypocritical of the vast majority of their actions. However, their minor actions of pulling funding from the worst lobbying groups and saying at least something, anything at all really, is a drastic change in the worlds most profitable industry. BP is the first oil company to step forward, accept anthropogenic global warming due to their own actions, and advocate for changes. They are not worthy of praise beyond this but, borrowing a tag line, “it’s a start.”