farmdoc's blog post number 308

Lewis Carroll coined the word portmanteau meaning a word derived from combining two separate words. The homepage of Richard Branson’s Virgin Corporation has links to Responsible Business Practice that ‘ensures that we manage our impact on society and the environment’, the Virgin Earth Challenge that was launched because ‘A solution is needed of the utmost urgency To Save the Earth’, the Virgin Green Fund that was established ‘to invest in companies in the renewable energy and resource sectors in the US and Europe’, and the Virgin Unite not-for-profit charity ‘to improve the social and environmental lives of others’. Reading that, you’d believe Virgin’s an environmentally aware corporation. I did too. Until I read this week it’s made a bid to buy Honda’s Formula 1 team. Currently the sale’s not finalised. But the mere fact Branson’s been sniffing around F1 has obliterated his environmental credibility – crushed it to zero – notwithstanding all Virgin’s environmental initiatives. It renders them pure greenwash (i.e. a portmanteau word). Nothing more than clever marketing to increase Virgin’s profit by pretending environmental concern. Prima facie, motor racing’s environmental lunacy. Undoubtedly you’d know that, Richard. Consider yourself an environmentalist, do you? Lewis Carroll wrote: ‘When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less’. And, Richard, remember the fate of the character saying those words: Humpty Dumpty.