When the RSPB proudly announced their partnership with Dale Vince’s Ecotricity energy provider, the charity went into overdrive of sanctimonious preaching on its carbon neutral approach to life.
Ecotricity sponsorship appeared across the RSPB’s marketing materials, including within blogs on the RSPB website titled: ‘Six ways you can save nature’. There it was declared by the RSPB that: “If we’re going to limit global temperature increases, we need to make a change to cleaner energy. Switching to a green provider such as Ecotricity ensures that the electricity and gas supplied to your home is greener and frack-free.”
There was certainly no mention within the blog that the RSPB relied heavily on huge amounts of funding from Ecotricity, including the installation of the large wind turbine at the RSPB’s HQ in Sandy.
Indeed, Ecotricity continues to publicise RSPB material across its website including prominently using a quote from RSPB’s former Director for Conservation, Martin Harper, claiming: “The installation of the wind turbine at our head office has been a significant step in the RSPB’s efforts to reduce our carbon emissions and we have shown how this can be delivered in harmony with nature.”
The charity's willingness to preach the positive impact of windfarms seems to fly in the face of the reality of the number of birds being killed each year by wind farms. The London School of Economics estimate that there could be up to 106,000 bird deaths a year, including many eagles and other birds of prey, as a direct result of wind energy generation in the UK. Of course, you’ll be hard pressed to find much criticism of this inconvenient fact from the RSPB.
However even more hypocritical is the description of Ecotricity itself. Dale Vince’s supposedly ‘eco’ company has recently been accused of ‘greenwashing’ by political transparency watchdog OpenDemocracy.
According to its UK investigations editor Martin Williams, Ecotricity claims to be “Britain’s greenest energy suppler”, yet researchers found in July 2024 that "99% of the gas it supplies comes from fossil fuels".
So let’s get this right: the RSPB have been championing for over a decade Ecotricity as the energy supplier their members must switch to if they are to ensure their homes are 'greener and frack free'.
These claims have all been made by the RSPB in exchange for a huge amount of money paid to the charity by the energy firm. Yet now it has emerged that 99% of the gas, that the RSPB are suggesting we switch to in order to become greener, comes directly from fossil fuels.
Vince is known to be a major supporter of other activist groups including, Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Animal Rising. You would think that this would therefore reflect the multi-millionaire's lifestyle. However embarrassing revelations have emerged in the national media this week after Vince’s ex-wife, Kate Vince, told a divorce court in London that she questioned her former husband's public commitment to a sustainable lifestyle.
She told the divorce court that periods of their marriage had been marked by 'an exceptionally high standard of living' including luxury international travel, top-of-the-range petrol cars and designer clothing. She added: 'He travelled by private jet, drank imported champagne and wine, and went on multiple international holidays.'
So in fact, once again, the gulf between what the RSPB claim publicly and what the reality is could seemingly not be further apart. The advertising watchdog I’m sure will also be very interested in learning more about the charity using its position to encourage the public to switch energy providers to a firm that paid it huge amounts of money annually, despite ‘99% of its gas coming from fossil fuels’.