Archive for greenwashing
Rumpe Cuou, Sormiou, in an electricity ad
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags advertising, big wall, CIRM, climbing, CO2, EDF, Electricité de France, electricity, greenwashing, Le Monde, Luminy, Marseille, massif des Calanques, mountain guide, Rumpe Cuou, Sormiou on July 15, 2025 by xi'an
Tea days
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Travel, Wines with tags Al Jazeera, bad graph, bring your own, chaï, China, Chinese tea, clay, greenwashing, histogram, India, Indian Railways, International Tea Day, Japanese tea, kulhad, plastic waste, Pu Erh tea, recycle, reuse, tea on May 23, 2025 by xi'an
And on the same day I came upon the announcement that Indian Railways was trying to revive a switch from plastic cups to the traditional kulhads (clay cups) in trains and train stations. Which is presumably another still-born attempt at greenwashing, given the logistical challenges of procuring clay to village potters, producing millions of kulhads every day, delivering and storing unstandardised cups, and figuring out how to recycle them. Not mentioning that firing and carrying these cups also has an ecological impact. Better start a campaign of bring-your-own-cup (which I tried to impose for a few conferences, mostly unsuccessfully!)
a day for social good in London
Posted in pictures, Travel, University life with tags Data science for social good, deforestation, DSSGx UK 2023, education, greenwashing, London, modern art, Tate Modern, Thames, The Shard, United Kingdom, University of Warwick, WBS on September 16, 2023 by xi'an
On Thursday, I went (from Paris) to London for the final day of Warwick DSSGx UK 2023 (Data Science for Social Good), which took place in The Shard, the tallest building in London (and certainly not the prettiest!), where the Warwick Business School has offices, and on the way, stopped by the nearby Tate Modern museum
where I spotted a few interesting pieces of art (but not that many!)
before heading to the 17th floor of the Shard building
And celebrating the great work done by the 16 Fellows (with the support of their fantastic technical mentors and project managers). Unfortunately, two of them were denied student visas and had to work remotely.The four projects were about predicting deforestation (in the Brazilian Amazon), failure to join a sixth form college (in the UK), risk of turning NEET (in the UK), and greenwashing (from social media).
We are now starting planning the next cohort, hence looking for candidates, projects, and financial support. Contact dssg@wbs.ac.uk for expressions of interest.
Antarctic sabbatical
Posted in Mountains, Travel, University life with tags airbnb, Antarctica, fairbnb.coop, greenwashing, plastic waste, sabbatical on September 29, 2019 by xi'an
Airbnb is supporting 5 volunteers that wish to join next December environmental scientist Kirstie Jones-Williams, from the University of Exeter, on a scientific expedition in Antarctica, investigating the presence of microplastics there. The deadline for applications is 11:59pm EDT on 8 October 2019. (I wish I could, but the news came a bit late to contemplate rescheduling a large number of classes.) As the offer includes riding snowmobiles and fat tyre bikes, and visiting sites over Antarctica, during the one week stay there, this obviously sounds more like covert tourism than a genuine expedition. With a dose of greenwashing by Airbnb, “inherently more eco-friendly than other forms of travel given that people are using spaces already built” to quote from the University of Exeter webpage, which does not mention the impact of airbnbing locals out of city centres by drying out long-term rentals and raising housing prices sky-high… (As a long-term user of airbnb, hence accomplice to the fact, I noticed a rising proportion of places that are sheer around-the-year rentals rather than occasionally let to visitors. And hope the alternative platform fairbnb.coop will launch soon.)
