Taiwan EPA warns enterprises to avoid ‘greenwashing’
台灣環保署警告企業避免“漂綠”
| Enterprises encouraged to take substantive action toward reducing emissions
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) warned local enterprises to avoid "greenwashing," which deceptively portrays businesses as eco-friendly while omitting negative impacts like greenhouse emissions. The EPA is encouraging businesses to track emissions through accurate inventory and establish a platform for third-party monitoring. Such actions have become more important with the Climate Change Response Act, signed into law on Feb. 15, per UDN. Government agencies and enterprises can undertake voluntary carbon reduction projects, either independently or jointly, potentially obtaining carbon reduction credits. Such credits can be transferred, traded, or auctioned to those needing carbon reduction to meet quotas. Through economic incentives, the government is encouraging businesses to track and reduce their carbon footprint. However, many carbon-reduction activities can be deceptive. The World Economic Forum (WEF) named two common types of deception. The first is “selective information disclosure,” where an enterprise selectively reveals beneficial information while overlooking the negative impact of other operations. For example, the WEF says paper products can be labeled “green” by meeting a narrow set of guidelines like sourcing from sustainably harvested forests. However, deliberately ignoring other actions in the production process can be deceptive, such as the use of chlorine to bleach paper and paper mill energy consumption. The second type of greenwashing is deemed "symbolism," which involves actions that have a surface value impact but ignore substantive problems. One example, according to the WEF, is a fashion brand donating to UNICEF while not addressing child labor issues in its supply chain. To battle greenwashing, the EPA has adopted two major measures. First, a review of carbon rights must comply with the principles of measurable, reportable, and verifiable (MRV) to ensure substantial carbon reduction. Second, the EPA has entrusted the Financial Supervisory Commission to set up and manage a carbon exchange. The EPA will carefully monitor this exchange and adjust carbon offset credits that can be traded with the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. |
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| Sean Scanlan, Taiwan News, Staff Writer | |
| 2023-05-24 |
