The world can seem like it’s painted in a general wash of off-green these days – whether it’s a car advert, UK climate minister Graham Stuart telling us fracking is green, or the carbon offset nature restoration projects that can look to be a salve or wash for those making big money out of big emissions elsewhere.

One sophisticated type of green washing has been the target Adam McKay, director of the satirical climate film Don’t Look Up, and now has its own term, “nature rinsing”. He recently posted a video on Twitter with the simple comment, “Has anyone seen this Chevron commercial?”

Like many, I clicked on it, wondering what the outrage might be, and found this was not an actual Chevron advert. It was a fake one, created by McKay, using generic stock footage reminiscent of that seen in many campaigns. A flurry of footage that begins with a swirl round dramatic sea-lapped rocks, trees, couples kissing and having fun, but contains the line, repeated in various forms, “We don’t give a f** about you.”

Most of us will have been washed by nature rinsing before. We’ve all seen those adverts – the lush forest, dramatic landscape, a sweep of coastline – and had those moments where we’ve wondering what this commercial could be advertising, whilst sensing already that it has to be a car, a fossil fuel company or an airline. The McKay advert is a reminder of the way those companies whose profits come with devastating emissions attached are selling through the wonder of the natural world.

Meanwhile, Dr Geoffrey Supran of the University of Miami has been researching nature-rinsing as part of a pilot study that monitored what it describes as“digital climate discourse and deception” by looking at the content of 2,324 social media posts generated by 22 major European Union-based fossil fuel producers, car manufacturers and airlines. Nature-rinsing, the study noted, was a common strategy of fossil fuel companies. “Statistical analysis reveals fossil fuel interests’ systematic use of nature-evoking imagery to enhance the ‘greenness’ of their brand image on social media.”

It also looked at how the companies represented what they were doing and found that 72 per cent of oil and gas, 60 per cent of car manufacturers and 60 per cent of airlines, posted social media content that “painted a ‘green innovation’ narrative sheen on their ‘business-as-usual’ operations”, which were “given less air time”.

Supran and his team also calculated the “green-to-dirty” ratio, the number of adverts the companies did for their low emissions . In other words, how they represented themselves to the world. And when the “green-to-dirty” ratio calculated out, oil and gas industry had a score of 3:1.

It’s worth looking at what actual proportions lie behind, for instance, this 3 to 1. Last month Channel 4 News analysed the accounts of four of Europe’s largest oil and gas companies and found that in the first six months of this year they made a staggering total of more than £74bn profits, but only five per cent of their profits were invested in renewables. In the first six months of this year, for example, Shell invested equivalent to 6.3% of its £17.1bn profits into low carbon energy, investing nearly three times more in oil and gas.

Supran’s study also noted that the posts featured misdirection and “demographic greening”, with adverts featuring not just images of nature, but those of “female presenting people, non-binary-presenting people, non-Caucasian-presenting people, young people”.I took a look at the Shell Twitter account and found it full of windturbines and solar panels, though these represent only. Its banner image collages together a photo of a black man, a wind turbine, a woman and a road running through a forest from above.

Green washing may seem like a thing we have to live with and develop a radar for – but that’s not enough. The sense that everything is green-washed is also what drives cynicism about the global Net Zero project. It helps make acceptable Net Zero scepticism or the fact that the Truss government barely mentions anything green at all. One of the big challenges ahead is forging a path of truth in terms of green and net zero practice – and that includes advertising. In the UK there is a Green Claims Code. But it doesn’t cover the subtlety of something like nature rinsing. whose subtlety and lack of hard claims makes it difficult to cover. But we can call it out and raise awareness.

The more companies like Chevron are mocked for their appropriation of nature, the better. That nature is being used against itself, appropriated to drive the consumption that drives its destruction, and with it our own, is tragic. We should not let it wash.ur of Europe’s largest oil and gas companies and found that in the first six months of this year they made a staggering total of more than £74bn profits, but only 5 percent of their profits were invested in renewables. In the first six months of this year, for example, Shell invested equivalent to 6.3% of its £17.1bn profits into low carbon energy, investing nearly three times more in oil and gas.

Supran’s study also noted that the posts featured misdirection and “demographic greening”, with adverts featuring not just images of nature, but those of "female-presenting people, non-binary-presenting people, non-Caucasian-presenting people, young people, experts, sportspeople, and celebrities".

I took a look at the Shell Twitter account and found it full of windturbines and solar panels, though these represent only. Its banner image collages together a photo of a black man, a wind turbine, an East-Asian woman and a road running through a forest from above.

Green washing may seem like a thing that we have to live with and develop a radar for – but that’s really not enough. The sense that everything is green washed is also what puts people off the global Net Zero project. It helps make acceptable Net Zero scepticism or the fact that the Truss government barely mentions anything green at all, since it fosters the sense that green is just a scam.

One of the big challenges ahead is forging a path of truth in terms of green and net zero practice – and that includes advertising. In the UK there is a Green Claims Code. But it doesn’t cover the subtlety of something like nature rinsing – because its subtlety and lack of hard claims makes it difficult to cover. But we can do our best to call it out and raise awareness.

The more companies like Chevron are mocked for their appropriation of nature, the better. That nature is being used against itself, appropriated to drive the consumption that leads to its destruction, and with it our own, is tragic. We should not let it wash.