Riemens studied the marketing statements of several Silicon Valley tech companies between 2019 and 2024. “We often think about companies in the economical context, but they also communicate in cultural terms, through public communications like advertisements. They then present us with an image of themselves that influences how we think about those companies.”
The image that companies have presented of themselves in advertisements in recent years is increasingly one of 'green' companies that care about nature. The arts and culture scholar mentions the example of an Apple advertisement for a 'carbon-neutral smartwatch', in which 'Mother Earth' asks Apple during an annual meeting what they have done for the climate. She is initially sceptical about the employees' response, but she is eventually convinced and says, ‘good, see you next year!’ Riemens: “In this way, Apple presents itself as an organisation that will fix the climate, while the video is really also just advertising for their latest product.”
Platform as solution
The companies present themselves as the solution to the climate problem. Riemens: “They take a platform view of the climate crisis: as if their platform sand products are the solution. For example, Microsoft says we need to collect more data so that there is more knowledge about climate change. You can then store that data with them. That's nonsense, of course: it is not an adequate solution because it oversimplifies the complex climate crisis into an information problem, but that is how they frame themselves as indispensable.” The same happens in the advertisement for the Apple smartwatch mentioned earlier.
Tech celebrities also talk themselves into the political arena, the researcher shows in her PhD thesis. Jeff Bezos even pitches living and working in space as plan B to save the Earth. And Bill Gates presents himself as a philanthropist with tech know-how who make the world more healthy and sustainable by investing in the right technology. “This is how they turn themselves into political actors,” says Riemens. “They are basically saying: governments are too slow, we are better at estimating how to tackle the climate crisis.”
Some of this perception is greenwashing (pretending to be greener than a company actually is), but some companies are actually becoming more sustainable in certain ways. According to the researcher however, the question is whether that outweighs the huge negative environmental impact of these companies, also caused by their continued growth. “Data or the ‘cloud’ may not seem physical, but they are ultimately also products that need to be made: they consist of an infrastructure of factories, cables, antennas, data centres and more.” And although Google purchases solar and wind power, it is also focusing on nuclear energy, because their , particularly since the advent of AI.
Increasingly, therefore, it appears that promises made by these companies are not kept, as in the case of the climate targets of Microsoft and and Amazon's Climate Pledge. These companies also provide that mask their true climate impact.
Tech optimism is a trap
According to Riemens, the danger of the green myth of tech companies is that we start relying too much on technological solutions that do not yet exist, so we don’t consider other solutions, such as necessary shrinkage. Recently, AI is often promoted for sustainable purposes, while its use has a large ecological footprint.
She emphasises the need to think about more structural solutions. “In Ireland, the number of data centres has increased so much in recent years that they now use more than 20 percent of the country's total electricity. Electricity that therefore cannot be used for other purposes. Meanwhile, there is less and less pressure for companies to be climate conscious, under leaders like Trump. Financial support for Trump is at odds with the green promises of CEOs such as Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg. We are increasingly more dependent on big tech companies, in education, healthcare and also at home. But with such companies, the interests of citizens and the planet are not always their priority.”