Apparently, Aggregate Industries’ commitment to sustainability runs right through its business:
Our commitment to #sustainability runs right through our business, and we aim to be trusted and respected by our stakeholders for the ethics we adopt and the products and services we supply.
— Aggregate Industries (@AggregateUK) June 4, 2021
Read more on our website: https://t.co/QeWcOqshk0#WorldEnvironmentDay pic.twitter.com/YZOwBMKP9g
If we overlook the fact that Aggregate Industries might be confused – that World Environment Day is the United Nations' way of encouraging us to protect the environment, not to continue digging it up and exploiting it – how has this "commitment to #sustainability" informed the company's application to quarry Straitgate? Anyone? Pray tell, Aggregate Industries, because local people will be scratching their heads.
It certainly isn’t the 2.5 million mile haulage scheme. It certainly isn’t the permanent harm to drinking water supplies to people, heritage assets, ancient woodland and livestock farms – as starkly set out by Professor Brassington. It certainly isn’t the increased risk of flooding – prompting an objection from the County Council's Flood Risk Team. It certainly isn’t the loss of best and most versatile farmland, or ancient hedgerows – habitat for dormice and bats. It certainly isn't any of these issues.
The dictionary defines greenwash as: "to make people believe that your company is doing more to protect the environment than it really is." Essentially, it "refers to dishonest or deceitful marketing about a company or product’s environmental impact."
As for "the ethics we adopt", don't get us started. Examples of those ethics have been well and truly documented over the years on this very blog: the bully-boy tactics, the dangerous HGV antics, the gagging of a journalist, the stopping of public scrutiny of groundwater data, the blocking of a community's social media account, the sort of company that prompts a council to say "Arrogance of Company; no local consultation; contempt for local community...".
@AggregateUK How does blocking a community’s social media account assist in ‘working in partnership with communities to better understand the long term #economic, #environmental and social implications of our activities’? @beisgovuk pic.twitter.com/lzFqcVr0Av
— Straitgate Action Gp (@straitgateactgp) November 28, 2018
