Greenwashing is when an organization spends more time and money on marketing itself as environmentally friendly than on actually minimizing its environmental impact. It’s a deceitful marketing gimmick intended to mislead consumers who prefer to buy goods and services from environmentally conscious brands. Mining companies are now very focused on marketing themselves as green to investors but continue to push projects forward that have not been consented to and that will have devastating environmental impacts.

From Doug Ford’s plan to massively expand mining in northern Ontario’s so-called “Ring of Fire,” to mining giants Ross Beaty and Andrew Forrest insisting they are leaders on climate change while pushing forward contentious projects in environmentally sensitive areas to RBC claiming to be ‘reimagining a sustainable future’ while investing in Coastal Gas Link, the Volta Grande project, and more projects synonymous with environmental damage and violations of free prior and informed consent, it is clear that many involved in PDAC are attempting to cash in on a green image without actually doing the real work involved in building a future that leaves no one behind.

It’s no secret that technology like solar panels and wind turbines rely on immense amounts of metals and minerals. But make no mistake: the companies who are jumping on the climate crisis bandwagon are the same ones that brought us to this point. Their messages may have shifted, but their quest for profit is business as usual. Meanwhile, communities across the globe are fighting back to protect their water, their lands, and their livelihoods from the impacts of mining – refusing to become sacrifice zones while investors get rich. We know we can do better and we know that the key to ending the climate crisis is in ending the colonial, white supremacist, and capitalist systems that created it, not further entrenching them.