The Corporate Capture of the Carbon Footprint
Here’s something I bet you didn’t know: the term carbon footprint—the one we’ve been taught to obsess over, track, and shrink—wasn’t invented by climate activists or environmental researchers.
It was invented by BP.
Yes, British Petroleum. One of the world’s largest oil companies coined and promoted the term as part of a $200 million PR campaign in the early 2000s. Their goal wasn’t to save the planet—it was to save themselves from regulation and public scrutiny.
And it worked.
By getting us to focus on our personal carbon footprints, BP and their agency Ogilvy & Mather effectively pulled off one of the most successful acts of Deflection Marketing in history. They made climate change feel like your fault. My fault. Our fault. For driving. Flying. Eating burgers. Meanwhile, they continued extracting, emitting, and expanding their fossil fuel empire.
That’s the power of Guiltwashing—one of the three core pillars of Deflection Marketing. It makes you feel morally responsible for problems created by massive systems. Instead of asking what BP was doing to the climate, we started asking ourselves whether we’d remembered to turn off the lights.
And once that guilt set in, the other two pillars slid in seamlessly. Freedom Framing told us we had the power to choose—LEDs over incandescents, bikes over SUVs, tote bags over plastic. Greenwashing dressed up the villains in eco-colored branding and sustainability promises they had no intention of keeping.
If you’re feeling like we’ve all been a little played—good. That’s the beginning of clarity. The carbon footprint wasn’t just a metric. It was a story, and like all good stories, it was designed to shift attention, reshape blame, and redirect momentum. But now it’s time to flip that script.
Because the truth is: your individual footprint matters—but not as much as holding the biggest polluters accountable. And that starts by seeing the narrative for what it really was—a deflection.
Meanwhile, during this same period, BP’s oil production and new reserve acquisitions continued unabated. As one New York Times writer observed in 2006, they “didn’t go beyond petroleum. They are petroleum.”
Timeline of Key Events and Shifting Narratives
The following table summarizes major milestones in the history of the carbon footprint concept and how the narrative around responsibility for emissions has evolved:
| Year | Event | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| 1971 | “Keep America Beautiful” PSA airs with the slogan “People Start Pollution. People Can Stop It.” | Early example of industry blame-shifting: Funded by beverage and packaging companies, the famous “crying Indian” ad pinned litter and pollution on individual behavior, diverting attention from corporate contributors [Mashable]. This set the template for future strategies like carbon footprint messaging. |
| 1992 | William Rees introduces “Ecological Footprint.” | Concept of measuring human impact in terms of land/resources is born [Wikipedia]. It provided a framework for personal/environmental impact, including carbon emissions as one component. Mathis Wackernagel and Rees later popularize it through a 1996 book, laying groundwork for specific metrics like the carbon footprint. |
| 1999 | First recorded use of “carbon footprint.” | The term “carbon footprint” appears in a BBC food magazine in 1999 [Wikipedia]. It initially refers to the GHG emissions of an activity or product. Though usage is limited at this time, it marks the start of the footprint concept being applied specifically to climate impact. |
| 2000 | BP launches “Beyond Petroleum” rebranding. | Facing climate criticism, BP (British Petroleum) hires Ogilvy & Mather for a $200 million PR blitz. Ads portray BP as a green energy company and subtly push the idea that climate change is a shared responsibility, not solely Big Oil’s fault [Mashable]. This campaign would soon popularize the term carbon footprint (not yet widely known in 2000) and win a Gold Effie advertising award [Mashable]. |
| 2004 | BP introduces the first “Carbon Footprint Calculator.” | BP’s website invites individuals to calculate their carbon emissions from daily life [Mashable]. Personal carbon footprint enters the mainstream. The phrase gains currency as hundreds of thousands use the tool [Thred]. BP’s accompanying “low-carbon diet” ad campaign in 2004–05 reinforces the idea that consumers can diet away their share of the climate problem [Thred]. |
| 2006–2007 | “Carbon footprint” goes mainstream. | Spurred by campaigns and rising climate awareness (e.g. An Inconvenient Truth in 2006), the term becomes common vernacular. Oxford Dictionaries names “carbon footprint” as Word of the Year 2007 (UK) [Oyla]. Media, governments, and schools worldwide promote tips to reduce one’s footprint. This period cements the notion that individual actions are key to fighting climate change. |
| 2008 | Backlash from environmental thinkers. | In Orion Magazine, Bill McKibben argues that focusing on personal footprints is inadequate and that collective action is needed [The Guardian]. He highlights the risk of thinking we can shop or diet our way out of climate change, instead of pushing for systemic policy changes. This marks one of the first high-profile critiques of the footprint mindset from within the climate movement. |
| 2010s | Spread of footprint concept vs. data on big emitters. | Carbon footprint calculators proliferate (EPA, UN, NGOs) and many consumers adopt low-carbon habits (LED bulbs, hybrid cars, etc.), indicating some positive impact. But studies also reveal the outsized role of industry: a 2017 report shows 100 companies = 71% of emissions since 1988 [The Guardian]. Activist campaigns (e.g. Fossil Free, Extinction Rebellion) increasingly target producers and governments rather than pleading only for individual lifestyle change. |
| 2020 | Pandemic emission drop; recycling revelations. | Global COVID-19 lockdowns cause a ~7% cut in CO₂ emissions – a record drop, yet atmospheric CO₂ barely slows [Mashable]. This real-world “experiment” demonstrates the limits of individual action (since much of that drop was due to individual behavior changes, which still weren’t enough to meet climate targets) [Mashable]. Also in 2020, investigations show the plastics industry’s decades-long greenwashing: oil companies promoted recycling to placate the public, despite knowing it wouldn’t solve plastic waste [NPR]. The parallel to the carbon footprint strategy becomes widely recognized. |
| 2021 | Public reckoning with the “carbon footprint” PR myth. | Journalists and activists call out the carbon footprint as a “sham” and a distraction [Mashable]. A Guardian op-ed by Rebecca Solnit exposes that the concept was pushed by BP’s ad agency to shift blame [The Guardian]. Academic studies (Supran & Oreskes) detail how oil companies’ rhetoric emphasized individual responsibility to delay regulation [Harvard News]. The term “carbon footprint” is increasingly associated with corporate greenwashing, even as it remains a useful personal metric when used in proper context. |
The Ecological Origins
The concept that BP would so effectively repurpose began with Rees and his former student Mathis Wackernagel. In 1996, they published “Our Ecological Footprint,” offering a compelling metaphor that even non-scientists could grasp: if your ecological footprint exceeds Earth’s capacity, your way of life is unsustainable. Full stop.
Within this broader ecological framework, carbon emissions represented just one component, typically expressed as the forest area needed to absorb a person’s CO₂ output. But as climate change gained prominence in scientific and policy circles, this carbon element began to take on a life of its own.
The term “carbon footprint” made its quiet debut in 1999, appearing in a BBC magazine about vegetarian food, according to Wikipedia. It was a natural evolution – a way to isolate the climate impact of our actions from the broader ecological picture.
The concept was educational by design, meant to help people understand that everyday choices – eating a burger, driving to work, flying across the country – translated into measurable quantities of greenhouse gases. This was the late 1990s, a time when scientific consensus on climate change was solidifying but public understanding remained nebulous. The carbon footprint offered something precious: a personalized metric that made the abstract problem of climate change tangible. It was a tool for awareness, a way to empower individuals with information about their environmental impact.
But tools, even well-intentioned ones, can be repurposed. And sometimes the hand that repurposes them has motives quite different from those who created them.
The Great COVID Carbon Test
By the late 2000s, calculating and reducing one’s carbon footprint had become a common trope in media, schools, and policy discussions. This wasn’t entirely negative – people became more aware of the energy use and emissions behind everyday activities, and some companies began voluntarily labeling products with carbon information.
But a countercurrent of skepticism was building. In 2008, environmentalist Bill McKibben made a compelling case against focusing solely on personal carbon footprints in The Guardian. Individual choices, while admirable, were insufficient given the scale of the climate crisis. What was needed, McKibben argued, was collective action and political change. “The trick is to take that 5 percent of people who really care and make them count for far more than 5 percent,” he wrote. “And the trick to that is democracy.”
The math was becoming clearer: even if millions of individuals went “carbon neutral,” one large coal-fired power plant or oil field expansion could wipe out those savings(The Gaurdian) . This reality was underscored by a striking 2017 report published in The Guardian which found that just 100 companies have been the source of 71% of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988. More than half of these emissions traced to only 25 corporate and state-owned entities – with BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron prominent among them.
In 2021, Harvard researchers Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes published a study analyzing decades of ExxonMobil’s climate messaging. They discovered that starting in the 2000s, Exxon’s communications underwent a subtle shift – from outright climate science denial to a more insidious framing that “fixated on consumer energy demand” and individual responsibility. Supran described it as “sophisticated propaganda hiding in plain sight” – a semantic trick where the industry “grabs the good words” while sticking the public with the burden of solving the problem, according to Harvard News.
The parallels with the plastics recycling saga became increasingly apparent. In 2020, an NPR/PBS investigation revealed that oil and plastic companies had aggressively promoted recycling since the 1980s despite knowing that recycling plastic at large scale “would never work.” They did this to assuage public concern and keep plastic sales growing. One former industry insider admitted that selling the recycling idea was just a way to “sell more plastic, even if it wasn’t true.”
One former industry insider admitted that selling the recycling idea was just a way to “sell more plastic, even if it wasn’t true.”
NPR 2020 Investigation
Just as oil and plastic companies had aggressively promoted recycling despite its limitations, fossil fuel companies had promoted personal carbon footprints while continuing to expand their operations. In both cases, the strategy was nearly identical: convince individuals that their actions are the solution, thereby deflecting attention from the corporations manufacturing the problematic products in the first place, as noted by Green Is The New Black.
The Reframing
What makes the carbon footprint story so compelling is not that it represents a deliberate conspiracy, but rather that it illustrates how subtly our thinking can be shaped by those with vested interests. The carbon footprint concept isn’t wrong – our individual choices do matter. But when we focus exclusively on personal responsibility, we risk missing the forest for the trees.
Climate change is, at its core, a collective action problem that requires systemic solutions – renewable infrastructure, corporate regulation, international agreements – which cannot be achieved by consumer choices alone. The narrative has slowly shifted from asking solely “How can I reduce my footprint?” to the more powerful question: “How can we, as a society, hold polluters accountable and reduce our overall footprint?”
This is the peculiar legacy of the carbon footprint: a concept born from ecological science, co-opted by corporate interests, and now being reclaimed as part of a more nuanced understanding of climate responsibility. It reminds us that in the realm of environmental action, as in so many areas of modern life, the framing of a problem often determines the range of solutions we consider possible.
And perhaps most importantly, it teaches us to look beyond the surface of environmental messaging to ask: Who benefits from this particular way of thinking about the problem? The answer might reveal more than the message itself.
References
“Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook”
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-carbon-footprints-climate-crisis
“The term ‘carbon footprint’ was a deliberate PR tactic created by Big Oil”
Mashable
https://mashable.com/article/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham
“The Forgotten History of How Automakers Invented the Crime of ‘Jaywalking’” (Related corporate responsibility shifting example)
Vox
https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history
“BP: ‘Beyond Petroleum’ or Beyond Preposterous?”
NPR
https://www.npr.org/2010/05/12/126773705/bp-beyond-petroleum-or-beyond-preposterous
“Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane emissions to fossil fuel and cement producers, 1854–2010” (Carbon Majors report)
Climatic Change (Journal)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-013-0986-y
“ExxonMobil’s climate denial rhetoric has subtly shifted to focus on consumer behavior, analysis finds”
Harvard Gazette
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/05/exxonmobil-shifts-climate-blame-to-consumers-study-finds/
“Plastic Wars: How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled”
NPR/PBS Frontline Investigation
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled
“How BP turned carbon footprint into a PR tactic”
Financial Times
https://www.ft.com/content/8e1d3da4-3fbc-11e9-9499-290979c9807a
“Your carbon footprint is a scam” (Video essay)
ClimateTown (YouTube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc
“Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: what urban economics leaves out” (William Rees, foundational paper)
Environment and Urbanization (Journal)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/095624789200400212
