Badvert of the Month: Free flights for plastic bottles? Greenwash reaches new heights with Manchester City x Etihad

Football Premier League club Manchester City has changed its official colour from light blue to greenwash with a new campaign featuring its airline sponsor Etihad. 

The campaign “Stay blue by going green” launched from March 6th is encouraging customers to ‘recycle’ their plastic bottles at the stadium by rewarding them with Etihad Guest Miles to go towards taking climate-polluting flights. The bizarre scheme gives incentives to fly for being good at recycling, even though the environmental impact from flying is far greater. 

Through this initiative, the football club is promoting a new managed waste system on its Etihad campus, claiming it will remove all single use plastics from its stadium.

“All you have to do is drop your plastic bottles in any of the pods and scan the QR code next to them to earn Etihad Guest Miles and help make a difference to the planet.”

This statement on Manchester City’s, one of the more egregious examples of greenwash marketing, shows that someone failed to do their pollution homework. But despite green campaigners promptly calling out the greenwash, no action was taken by the club to remove this statement from public communications. 

Manchester City’s desire to reduce its carbon emissions may be genuine, but doing so while simultaneously promoting its high-carbon sponsor - the airline Etihad - contradicts and undermines that aim, cancelling any possible benefits. Dangerously, what it achieves is to associate the airline in customers’ minds with green initiatives, encouraging them to fly under a false impression of environmental sustainability.

Manchester City Stay blue by going green campaign

But, if Manchester City were serious about going green, and if it were to ditch its two main high-carbon sponsors, Etihad Airways and the car manufacturer Nissan, this would have the greatest positive climate impact by signalling a positive value shift in the fact that corporates’ social licence to pollute is no longer acceptable. 

Our own research shows that global sports is surfing a wave of high-carbon sponsors and it is time to treat them as the old tobacco by ending those harmful partnerships. 

Etihad’s commitment to sustainability

Recently airlines have stepped up their carbon reduction pledges by launching an array of green initiatives and campaigns, all designed to showcase how much they are taking climate action seriously. But, the truth is that most of these pledges consist mostly of greenwash. Most airlines currently are focused on marketing themselves as “green” rather than committing to meaningful action on the climate. The latter necessarily implies downsizing their industry and transitioning jobs towards low-carbon modes of transport and offering programs for training and upskilling staff.

Etihad’s sustainability pledges - https://www.etihad.com/en/sustainability

Over the last two and half years, Etihad has doubled down on marketing green initiatives. In early 2020, the company committed to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. While most airlines are betting on a mix of carbon offsetting programs and the deployment of so-called “zero emissions technologies” - e.g Easyjet’s latest adverts, Etihad is also actively pursuing a green consumer strategy by encouraging its customers to take simple “green steps”, such as travelling lighter in order to save emissions or buying bamboo toothbrushes under its newly branded “Conscious Choices” program. 

“While Etihad has focused on developing technology and innovative solutions for operational efficiency that will actively reduce the CO2 emissions of flying, we have placed an equal focus on the guest. To that end we have been developing our sustainable loyalty programme for the last year, listening to member feedback and taking into account their priorities and expectations for travel.” - Tony Douglas, group chief executive officer, Etihad Aviation Group

The discrepancy between these incremental green consumer choices and the level of emissions released by airlines is enormous. But the approach amounts to confusion marketing, making it harder for people to assess the real impact of different choices. The effect is to make people believe there is no need to worry about going on another flight, because the company is taking sustainability seriously.  

“Corporate advertisement and brand building strategies also attempt to deflect corporate responsibility to individuals, and/or to appropriate climate care sentiments in their own brand building; climate change mitigation is uniquely framed through choice of products and consumption, avoiding the notion of the political collective action sphere” (Doyle 2011; 37 Doyle et al. 2019) - IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

The truth is that the airline shows no sign of taking the only meaningful action, and flying many fewer planes.  On the other hand, Etihad is banking on the development of so-called “sustainable flights” on their nicknamed “Greenliner'' aircraft. As reported in the latest IPCC report, Etihad’s corporate advertising strategy is one that relies essentially on framing climate change mitigation through the lens of green consumption - ie. sustainable dining options, plant water bottles, waste recycling onboard and so forth. 

The reality is that the airline’ claim to reduce 72% of emissions per flight (per passenger per kilometre) with their ”sustainable flights” fully omits the reality that in absolute terms global air traffic has kept growing exponentially over recent years (doubling up every 15 years) and that these minor changes would be in no way sufficient to align with necessary global emission reductions targets.

Company background: Etihad

Etihad Airways (etihad meaning united in Arabic) was founded in 2003 as the national airline and second flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates. Three years after its creation, the Middle East airline reached 30 destinations. As of December 2021, Etihad Airways serves 71 passenger and cargo destinations in 47 countries, having carried over 3.5 million passengers.

Between 2010 and 2015, Etihad has acquired various stakes, both minority and majority, in other airlines including Aer Lingus, Air Seychelles, Air Serbia, Alitalia and several others. 

In 2019 Etihad Airways flew its Boeing 787 Dreamliner - nicknamed “Greenliner” - using a 30% biofuel blend - derived from salicornia plant. In the words of Etihad, its Boeing 787 Dreamliner remains the backbone of the company’s fleet and is the “world’s most fuel efficient aircraft”. This model represents the largest type of aircraft owned by the company (39 out of 67 operating aircraft - as of December 2021).

In May 2020, rumours spread that the airline would consider cancelling its Airbus A350 orders due to financial losses endured by the Covid-19 pandemic and following a similar move from Air France. Throughout 2020, Etihad Airways laid off over 1,000 cabin crew and pilots citing reasons due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The airline is still aiming for a 2023 return to profit after enduring consecutive financial losses since 2016.