Insidious Sponsorship

Nominee three in our Fossil Heating Greenwashing Awards is "Insidious Sponsorship" 

From sports to education to culture and the arts, the fossil fuel industry uses its huge financial resources to cultivate sponsorship deals to buy our goodwill and give itself a veneer of respectability. Fossil fuel industry sponsorship is deeply insidious; wherever we go it’s hard to avoid seeing fossil fuel sponsorship of the activities or events that we love or value. Even our children are targeted through phenomena like the Texaco Children’s Art Competition and fossil fuel sponsorship of children’s sporting events. 

Here we highlight some specific examples of fossil fuel sponsorship that have made “Insidious Sponsorship” worthy of a nomination for our Fossil Heating Greenswashing Award.

Texaco Children’s Art Competition

Texaco, which sells home heating oil along with other fossil fuels products, uses the Texaco Children’s Art Competition to cynically distract from the climate destruction it is causing every year.

Texaco is owned by US based fossil fuel company, Valero Energy. Valero Energy was a key supporter of the infamous Keystone XL Pipeline project which, if built, would have acted as a fuse to one of the world’s most dangerous carbon bombs, transporting filthy tar sands oil from Canada to the US, violating indigenous rights as it passed through the heart of sacred indigenous territories. 

Valero has also been involved in lobbying to obstruct climate action policies and criminalize protests against oil and gas infrastructure. It has been found guilty of over 300 offenses, including, but not limited to, environment-related, safety-related and employment related offenses. Valero’s refinery in Benicia, California, secretly released pollutants like benzene hundreds of times the legal limit between 2003 and 2018 before it was discovered. 

But there is no mention of such reckless behavior on the Texaco Children’s Art Competition website. Instead Texaco portrays itself as the provider of a “wonderful childhood experience” and highlights politicians, broadcasters and journalists who have either won the competition as children or officiated as Guest of Honour at its prize giving ceremonies. Will such experiences cloud the judgement of these politicians and members of the media who should be holding companies like Texaco to account for the harm they cause? 

Texaco’s “Support for Sport”

Texaco also runs a competition where sports clubs compete for funding - with former Irish rugby player Donncha O’Callaghan acting as an ambassador for this sportswashing initiative. 

According to Texaco’s parent company, Valero Energy, the sports that apply for Texaco funding are the “the heart and soul of the community”. You could be forgiven for thinking that Texaco cares deeply about community. But in reality, Valero Energy is putting communities that live near its oil refineries in danger as they suffer from elevated risks of cancer and respiratory hazards.

Valero’s St. Charles refinery is located along the Mississippi River in Louisiana’s infamous “Cancer Alley.” Shell also operates a refinery nearby while Marathon’s Garyville refinery is a few miles upriver. This area has extremely high health risks, ranking above the 95th percentile in both air toxics cancer risk and respiratory hazard. In addition to elevated health risks, communities living near refineries can also be subjected to periodic fires, explosions, accidents, and toxics releases. Valero’s facilities often have a disproportionate impact on low-income and Black, Indigenous, and communities of colour - further perpetuating environmental racism. 

Fossil fuel sponsorship of the GAA

Fossil fuel companies are masters at using their sponsorship of sporting events to exploit people's love of sport to 'wash' their image clean and make switching away from fossil fuels unpopular. Several oil companies, such as home heating oil providers, sponsor local GAA clubs or local GAA championships. This makes it difficult or unpopular for local people and local politicians to push for changes to our home heating systems that would see fossil fuels being replaced. Fossil fuel sponsorship also reaches up the highest tiers of the GAA with Bord Gáis sponsoring the GAA All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship and the GAA Legends Tours of Croke Park.