By Bank of America released its so-called Corporate Social Responsibility report today. I say “so-called” because it’s still unclear how the bank justifies calling itself “socially responsible” when it is the #1 financier of US coal, the most socially irresponsible form of energy out there.
Unfortunately, the report doesn’t offer any clues, as it makes no mention of BofA’s coal financing, the immense, dirty, unsustainable elephant in the room.
BofA exec Andrew Plepler hosted a “Twitter chat”—whatever the hell that is—to discuss the report. It was almost like BofA decided to hold its press conference right here in our office. Given the glaring omission (and emissions) of BofA’s coal financing, the bank’s attempts to highlight its social responsibility are nothing but greenwash. And Twitter let Plepler know it.
Here is the whole chat, in all its dubious glory. I counted two, maybe three people actually trying to ask Plepler about his bank’s CSR initiatives. The rest of the 100+ tweets are by activists wanting to know how BofA can claim to be a responsible corporate citizen while propping up the dirty and outdated coal industry. For brevity’s sake, not all retweets are included here, though I included several at the end just to show that even after Plepler tried to shut the conversation down, it just kept growing.
Thanks to everyone who participated in BofA’s first—and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say last—Twitter chat today.
[View the story “Bank of America’s greenwash doesn’t fly on Twitter… ” on Storify]