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Jul 116 min read

ExxonMobil's strategy for a circular economy: Deny, delay, distract, deceive. Burn. Repeat.


A protester holds a sign about the climate change denial of ExxonMobil at the protest Our Generation, Our Choice in Washington, D.C. Image source: "Exxon Knew" by Johnny Silvercloud on Flickr.com


When ExxonMobil made headlines for suing two activist shareholders over their proposal for the company to set more aggressive emission-cutting targets, I knew I'd found the next inductee for the GIC Hall of Shame. Even after the shareholders withdrew their proposal, ExxonMobil continued with the lawsuit. Their intention was to silence the shareholders by preventing them from bringing similar proposals to future shareholder meetings—and potentially set a precedent that would threaten shareholder activism on any issue. (A federal judge eventually dismissed the lawsuit.) Those are some real dick moves, ExxonMobil, but far from the worst you've ever done.


Life is short and so are attention spans, so I'll cover just a few examples to illustrate how ExxonMobil's levels of awfulness set it apart from its peers. If you're bored already, skip to the Sources section and skim the titles referenced. You'll get the gist, but you'll miss out on my savage discourse.


Fueling a destiny of climate catastrophe

Obviously a behemoth oil company will be called out for its greenhouse gas emissions, but in this arena ExxonMobil is particularly offensive. According to the Carbon Majors database, which comprises historical data from 122 of the largest oil, gas, coal, and cement producers, ExxonMobil is ranked 2nd in the US (after Chevron) and 5th in the world for total greenhouse gas emissions. Making matters worse, ExxonMobil is staunchly committed to maintaining or possibly exceeding its rankings:


ExxonMobil shows negative engagement on most forms of climate regulation and advocates for energy policies that would accelerate fossil fuel development. The company retains an extensive network of memberships to industry associations that actively oppose climate-related policy globally. — Carbon Majors, Climate Policy Engagement Overview

Further evidence comes from the latest Big Oil Reality Check. The report measured companies against ten criteria that represent the bare minimum for aligning with the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C. ExxonMobil was rated "Grossly Insufficient," the worst rating possible, on all criteria (although they weren't alone).


Big Oil fails to meet the bare minimum criteria needed to align with the Paris Agreement. Image source: "Big Oil Reality Check: Aligned in Failure," Oil Change International (May 2024)


If these companies proceed as planned, not only will they use up nearly one-third of the remaining global carbon budget for the 1.5°C target, but they'll push us into a temperature increase of over 2.5°C that will have catastrophic consequences.


This year's Big Oil Reality Check makes it clearer than ever—we cannot trust fossil fuel corporations to do anything but line the pockets of their CEOs and investors at the cost of our climate and communities. People around the world are rising up to end the era of fossil fuels and build a just energy system that puts climate and communities first. — Oil Change International

Greenwashing and gaslighting the masses

ExxonMobil would like us to ignore report cards and instead believe that it is doing its part to address climate change. To manipulate perceptions, the company routinely deploys greenwashing and gaslighting tactics, and a recent example is its own "2024 Advancing Climate Solutions" report. The report starts off somewhat commendably, stating that ExxonMobil "aims to achieve net-zero Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions in our operated assets by 2050." Except that there's a glaring Scope 3 emissions omission:


  • Scope 1 and 2 emissions add up to only 10% of the total emissions that ExxonMobil is responsible for. These emissions come from the company's production processes and the energy it consumes. The net-zero targets rely on unproven carbon capture technology that is severely lacking in scale, questionable offset schemes, and technologies that don't yet exist.

  • Scope 3 emissions account for 90% of the emissions that ExxonMobil is responsible for. These emissions are indirect, coming from the consumption and use of ExxonMobil's products. These are the emissions those activist shareholders were concerned about, and ExxonMobil is the only major western oil company that hasn't set targets for reducing them.


The first mention of Scope 3 emissions are buried in a footnote on page 18. Subsequent mentions occur on a few pages near the end of the 81-page report, mainly tossed into word salads attempting to explain why ExxonMobil shouldn't be held accountable for them. According to ExxonMobil, flawed accounting protocols and poor customer choices are to blame, as if to say, "It's not our fault that customers buy and use our products."

First mention of Scope 3 emissions in the ExxonMobil "2024 Advancing Climate Solutions" report, page 18 (emphasis added)


If your palate for deception prefers visuals to word salads, the report has plenty of "slick, colorful, and yet meaningless graphics" as described in this scathing review from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Damning aside, it's an amusing read and reminds me of the "what's wrong with this picture" games I played as a kid. (Thinking out loud: Is ExxonMobil struggling to keep decent data visualizers? Maybe they see the data and run.)

What's wrong with this picture? For answers, see Greenwashing in graphs: An ExxonMobil story. Image source: ExxonMobil "2024 Advancing Climate Solutions" report


Shortly after ExxonMobil blamed customers for 90% of its emissions, the gaslighting trend continued when The Hill published this headline: "Exxon CEO blames public for failure to fix climate change." The issue, according to CEO Darren Woods, is that customers aren't willing to pay for the added cost of cleaner fossil fuels. Tell me, Darren, will customers be willing to pay for the added costs of climate disaster caused by dirty fossil fuels? Surely the money is somewhere, least not from the $36.9 million salary of a CEO paid by a company with a net income of $36 billion that spent as much as $44 million lobbying against climate change in 2020, in an industry that received record government subsidies of over $7 trillion in 2022. (That's a handout of $13 million a minute, by the way.)


The Hill article also mentions that Woods told editors from Fortune that "the world has waited too long to begin investing in a broader suite of technologies to slow planetary heating." And yet, in 1977—nearly fifty years ago—Exxon executives were informed by one of the company's senior scientists that the burning of fossil fuels was the most likely cause for climate change. From 1977 to 2003, scientists at ExxonMobil amassed data that accurately predicted and modeled global warming attributed to the burning of fossil fuels, even estimating how much CO2 would lead to dangerous temperature increases. In 1981—over 40 years ago—Exxon scientists concluded that fossil fuel consumption would need to be significantly reduced to mitigate the catastrophic consequences of climate change.


Campaigning against climate action

ExxonMobil's response to what it knew about climate change is one reason why it has its own wiki page on climate denial. Instead of acting responsibly, the company embarked on a wildly successful disinformation campaign that obstructed any meaningful action on climate change. The company never publicly acknowledged climate change until 2014, less than two years before the Paris Agreement was adopted.


Between 2000 and 2003 ExxonMobil channeled at least $8,678,450 to forty organizations that employed disinformation campaigns including "skeptic propaganda masquerading as journalism" to influence the opinion of the public and political leaders about global warming. — Wikipedia

A growing number of states and cities are suing ExxonMobil and others for misleading the public and creating damage related to climate change. Still to this day the company continues to spend money against climate action, investing heavily in greenwashing campaigns.


One of those campaigns began in 2009; it featured algae-based biofuels and claimed that they might someday reduce transportation emissions by 50%. The same campaign, ten years later, boasted that "by 2025, ExxonMobil is aiming to have the technical ability to produce 10,000 barrels of algae-based fuels per day."


In reality, ExxonMobil spent almost twice as much annually on deceptive marketing than it did on its algae research: $56 million for deception versus $30 million for research. Over ten years it spent $300 million on algae research, amounting to just 0.14% of what it spent in 2020 alone on other investment capital and exploration. ExxonMobil stopped funding algae-based biofuels in 2022. The budget hardly noticed.


Image source: ExxonMobil ad campaign for algae-based biofuels


Image source: ExxonMobil ad campaign for algae-based biofuels, paid post presented to look like an article in the New York Times


Force feeding plastic to a world that's lost its appetite

Shaming an oil company might seem off-topic for a website about garbage, but there's a direct connection: ExxonMobil was the world's leading producer of single-use plastic in 2021, according to the Plastic Waste Makers Index 2023. ExxonMobil gave us 6 million metric tons of the stuff, along with 20 million metric tons of associated cradle-to-grave emissions. Squandering our precious and limited carbon budget on a material designed to be thrown away is reprehensible.

  • 6 million metric tons is equivalent to the weight of 32,693 Boeing 747 jets

  • 20 million metric tons of CO2 is equivalent to the annual emissions from 4,760,036 gasoline-powered cars, which is more cars than are registered in 47 of the 50 United States


Plastic accounts for half of the world's petrochemical demand, and plastic production is expected to triple by 2060. Oil companies are likely betting on plastic as their self-preserving strategy in the fight against climate change, given that demand for fossil fuels—even biofuels—is in decline, attributed to increasing transitions to renewables like wind and solar and electric vehicles.


With their push for more plastic, oil companies are at odds with the rest of the world, in particular 175 nations of the United Nations Environment Assembly that voted to adopt a global treaty to end plastic pollution. Alongside them are 57 countries that have joined the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution to achieve three strategic goals:


  1. Restrain plastic consumption and production to sustainable levels.

  2. Enable a circular economy for plastics that protects the environment and human health.

  3. Achieve environmentally sound management and recycling of plastic waste.


Even the US and China, the world's leading producers of plastic waste, jointly released the Sunnylands Statement in November 2023, despite their often strained relationship. This agreement outlines commitments between the two countries to address the climate crisis, with one specific to plastic:


15. The United States and China are determined to end plastic pollution and will work together and with others to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including the marine environment.


While the rest of the world rises up against the plastic crisis, ExxonMobil dares to dissent, arguing against any restraints on plastic production. Karen McKee, the company's head of product solutions, delivered a real head-scratcher of a statement in an attempt to change the narrative:


The issue is pollution. The issue is not plastic. A limit on plastic production will not serve us in terms of pollution and the environment. — Karen McKee, ExxonMobil head of product solutions

ExxonMobil is conveniently shifting the blame once again to the consumer, implying that if we were better at throwing plastic in a bin instead of the ocean, the problem would go away. So few words convey so much denial, ignorance, audacity, and arrogance. We are not so easily fooled.


Karen, I'm calling your bluff. The issue is not pollution. The issue is plastic, and 50 scientists back me up with this headline: From gas wells to rubber ducks to incineration, the plastics lifecycle causes "horrific harm" to the planet and people, report shows.


The level of scientific certainty is absolute. There are still details to be worked out about the exact magnitude, but there is no doubt whatsoever that plastic causes disease, disability, premature death, economic damage and damage to ecosystems at every stage of its life cycle. And the life cycle begins with the extraction of the oil, the coal, and the gas that are the building blocks for 98 to 99 percent of plastics. — Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, pediatrician, epidemiologist, and director of Boston College’s Global Public Health Program and Global Observatory on Planetary Health

If we can't manage current levels of plastic waste, how will we possibly manage triple the amount or more as projected? Even under the best possible conditions, we won't be able to recycle our way out of the plastic crisis, which comprises so much more than pollution. A limit on plastic production must be part of the strategy:

  • Increased production will continue to drive global greenhouse gas emissions to unsustainable levels. In 2019, plastic production accounted for 5% of emissions, not counting additional cradle-to-grave emissions from transport, use, and disposal/recycling.

  • Compared to virgin plastic, recycled plastic is more expensive to produce, rarely meets the same purity and quality demands, and has very few end markets (buyers).

  • Recycling will never lead to a 100% circular plastics economy, since plastic can be recycled only a few times before the material degrades to the point of no longer being usable. All plastic will eventually end up burned, landfilled, or lost in the environment.

  • Microplastic pollution will continue to occur throughout the plastic lifecycle, and microplastics will continue to accumulate in the environment and our bodies. Nurdles will be lost during polymer production, product manufacturing, and transport; fragments, flakes, and powders will end up airborne and in wastewater; particles will shed from tires and synthetic textiles; and each round of recycling will produce microplastics that contaminate groundwater, sewer systems, and the water we use for drinking and irrigating crops.

  • Plastics will continue to be made with toxic chemicals that leach into our water and the food we eat. These chemicals have become prevalent in humans and are linked to myriad health issues, including kidney and liver damage, respiratory problems, cardiovascular disease, immune deficiency, hormone disruption, endocrine disruption, miscarriage, reproductive abnormalities, cancers, ecotoxicity, and the list goes on. A February 2024 study estimates that we spend $250 billion a year on health issues attributed to chemicals in plastic, although that number is considered a gross underestimation.

  • Production and recycling facilities needed to accommodate increased volumes will heighten social and environmental injustice against vulnerable, low-income, and minority communities. Most facilities are adjacent to these communities, exacerbating environmental and related health issues for their residents.


Advancing the myth of recycling

There's a reason why less than 9% of plastic worldwide is recycled, and that's because recycling doesn't work, according to a February 2024 report from the Center for Climate Integrity and further backed by a 10-year review by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Even the plastics industry agrees. Dating back to 1969, the industry knew that recycling is neither economically feasible nor technically possible for the vast majority of plastics, calling it "virtually hopeless." There are simply too many different types of plastics and chemical additives; they're nearly impossible to sort and they don't play well with each other.


For over half a century, oil companies have promoted the false promise of recycling, placating consumers so that we'd keep filling bins with guilt-free plastic waste, not realizing that nearly all of it was destined for landfills and incinerators. An Exxon executive admitted as much during a 1994 meeting with the American Plastics Council:


We are committed to the activities [of recycling], but not committed to the results. — Irwin Levowitz, Exxon Chemical Vice President (1994)

In spite of reality and its own findings, ExxonMobil continues to play the long con of recycling, this time touting a panacea for the plastic crisis, a "new" technology that will bring circularity and sustainability to plastic waste by endlessly creating new plastic from old. The technology is chemical recycling, known also as plastics renewal, molecular recycling, or what the industry likes to call "advanced recycling." It's lipstick on a pig, except that the pig is more expensive, less efficient, worse for the environment, and not really a pig.


Chemical recycling uses heat (incineration), chemicals, or both to break down plastics into molecules that can be used to create new plastics, synthetic fuels, and other chemicals. The technology has existed for decades but has failed to prove a viable solution for managing plastic waste:


  • Chemical recycling is more expensive than mechanical recycling and virgin plastic production. Chemical recycling requires many of the same processes as mechanical recycling (collection, transport, sorting), but has additional treatment costs that make it more expensive. With any form of recycling, the plastic feedstock needs to be clean and well sorted to produce output of value. Sorting has a high cost, and the level of sorting required is neither technically nor economically feasible, especially considering that many products consist of multiple types of plastic that are difficult if not impossible to separate. All this overhead makes resins from chemical recycling 1.6 times more expensive than virgin resins. It's as much a “fundamentally uneconomical process” today as it was in 1994, when Exxon's Chemical Vice President Irwin Levowitz used those words to describe it.

  • Chemical recycling is less efficient than mechanical recycling and virgin plastic production. Chemical recycling produces very little output that becomes reusable plastic, only 1-14% compared to 55-85% with mechanical recycling. The remaining 86-99% of the output becomes a dirty synthetic fuel to be burned, plus other hazardous waste to be landfilled or incinerated. The process requires significantly more water than mechanical recycling and is exceedingly energy intensive. It uses seven times more energy to produce a kilogram of reusable plastic than it would take to produce the same amount of virgin plastic.

  • Chemical recycling is worse for the environment than mechanical recycling and virgin plastic production. Chemical recycling produces more greenhouse gas emissions than mechanical recycling or virgin plastic production, and its environmental and climate impacts are up to 100 times more damaging. Facilities are typically powered by fossil fuels and the synthetic fuels they produce, creating air pollution and CO2 emissions. They produce hazardous waste and release toxic emissions from chemicals and substances that have been banned globally. When facilities process plastic into fuel, they emit three tons of CO2 for every ton of plastic. This synthetic fuel is not regulated under the federal Clean Air Act, even though it is harmful to human health and devastating for the climate. The facilities themselves are prone to fires and explosions, bringing more environmental and health risks to adjacent communities.


Chemical recycling: A fossil fuel merry-go-round. Image source: "Chemical Recycling: A Dangerous Deception," Beyond Plastics and IPEN (2023)


Proof of failure is outlined in a 2023 report that assessed the 11 chemical recycling facilities in the US, including ExxonMobil's own in Baytown, Texas. Only four were fully operational. None had been able to make old plastics into new ones; instead, the plastics ended up as dirty synthetic fuel. One facility closed six months after the study; it couldn't turn a profit after 12 years of trying. Even if all 11 facilities were operating at full capacity, they would still be able to process only 1.3% of the plastic waste produced in the US each year. The report's findings were so abysmal that the top recommendation was to declare a national moratorium on any new chemical recycling facilities. Subsequent recommendations were to further analyze and test existing facilities, prohibit them from plastic-to-fuel projects, end all incentives and funding, make them financially responsible for related environmental damage, and a host of other admonishments.


Even in the experienced hands of Exxon, I think this technology will never be safe and sustainable. Exxon is just too conflicted in needing to protect and expand its giant production of plastics. — Terry Collins, professor of chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University and founding member of the Scientists' Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty

Even if recycling—be it mechanical or "advanced"—suddenly became a viable solution to the "pollution issue," changes would be needed to address the issue at scale. The infrastructure buildout alone would undoubtedly come with a massive carbon footprint and a price tag upward of $1 trillion:

  • Collection infrastructure would need to be expanded worldwide, bringing service to all communities that consume plastic, ideally free of charge.

  • Recycling infrastructure would need to be expanded to accommodate increased volumes, and recycling technologies would need to be able to process all types of plastics, making wishcycling obsolete.

  • Technologies would need to be improved to eliminate waste and contamination from microplastics and other toxic by-products.

  • The entire expanded process would need to be far more energy efficient and cost effective than what's in place today, where recycled plastic is more energy intensive than virgin plastic, and the cost to recycle is typically higher than the value of the output.


Recounting the behaviors, denials, and lies, the message is clear: ExxonMobil has an agenda that will not bode well for anyone. The future unfolds each time we witness "never before" climate-related events. While I was writing this article, over 1,000 people had to evacuate their island home due to rising sea levels, at least 11 US states simultaneously advised residents to avoid gas-powered vehicles and equipment due to air quality concerns, and scientists learned that the "doomsday" glacier is melting faster than expected. Just because ExxonMobil chooses to act irresponsibly doesn't make it acceptable for us to do the same. Let's not be complacent; let's do what we can:

  • Sign the Action Network petition asking the US Department of Justice and State Attorneys General to investigate Big Oil and make polluters pay.

  • Contact your elected officials to demand greater climate engagement from Big Oil and oppose chemical recycling facilities in your state. (Be sure to reference the 2023 report, Chemical recycling: A dangerous deception, from Beyond Plastics and IPEN.)

  • Reduce your consumption of gas (no EV or hybrid required): Consolidate trips, rideshare, take public transportation, walk, ride a bike, and maximize fuel efficiency. You know the drill.

  • Reduce your consumption of single-use plastics, and plastics in general. I've got plenty of suggestions to help you be less trashy and a small but growing list of plastic alternatives.


Whatever you do, don't buy into ExxonMobil's propaganda.


My first meme, inspired by sarcasm and outrage. If you're lost on the translation, zero in on the backstory: Read | Watch. Image source: Imgflip Meme Generator


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