What happens when a sustainability-serious business meets a climate activism ecosystem with no bank account? Can they consummate their shared green passion – and what’s the cost of the best climate story on the market?
This article takes the form of a See Through screenplay.
Act I: A Perfect Match? depicts the kind of encounter that regularly takes place between Effective Activists and businesses at ‘green’ events populated by Ineffective Activists.
Act II: Will They Or Won’t They? highlights the difficulty businesses have in telling the difference.
Act III: Who’s The Hero? reveals how businesses are, and aren’t, moved from Inaction to Action.
ACT III: Who’s The Hero?
Version A
SCENE: INTERIOR, DAYTIME
A rapidly emptying trade show.
The entirely green decor is being dismantled.
Cherry-pickers lower a large banner reading ‘Green Theme 2026: This Planet Ain’t Gonna Save Itself!’
Workers in hi-viz jackets disassemble stands, banners, screens etc., while delegates supervise or chat to each other.
An ornate clock on the wall ticks over to 6pm.
SITHRU walks up to where the Susbiz stand was, just as workers in hi-viz jackets heave the table and chairs onto a flat-bed truck.
SITHRU glances at the clock a couple of times, while the workers rip and fold the various cardboard boards and banners advertising Susbiz, before stamping them flat and piling them onto the truck.
SITHRU impassively watches the truck move on to the neighbouring stand.
After a last glance at the clock, now showing 6.15pm, SITHRU pulls a mobile phone from a pocket, checks it as if for messages.
Showing no particular emotion, SITHRU puts the phone away, and walks off towards the exit.
Version B
SCENE: INTERIOR, DAYTIME
A rapidly emptying trade show.
The entirely green decor is being dismantled.
Cherry-pickers lower a large banner reading ‘Green Theme 2026: This Planet Ain’t Gonna Save Itself!’
Workers in hi-viz jackets disassemble stands, banners, screens etc., while delegates supervise or chat to each other.
While the Susbiz stand is being dismantled, WIDGE, ROI and SITHRU sit at the small round table. The coffee pot is now replaced with a bottle of wine and glasses.
WIDGE pours wine into three glasses.
WIDGE raises a glass.
WIDGE: To a successful conclusion of our time here. It was a pleasure to meet you, Sithru. I hope this is the beginning of a long relationship.
ROI leaving his glass on the table: No toasts yet, Widge. Until Sithru accepts one of our offers, there’s no relationship.
SITHRU raises glass briefly to WIDGE, replaces it on the table without drinking.
SITHRU: Quite right, ROI. Thanks for reminding us we’re here for business, not pleasure. We shouldn’t forget our business ABCs.
ROI looking knowingly at WIDGE, as if vindicated: Always Be Closing. I hear you, Sithru. So what’s the deal?
SITHRU holds up their two folded bids.
SITHRU: I owe you both a response to your kind offers. I appreciate you’ve both put a lot of thought into them.
ROI looks triumphantly at WIDGE.
SITHRU, unfolding one of the pieces of paper: First, let’s look at ROI’s offer for Cashbiz. They offered, in US dollars, the sum of…
ROI, interrupting, alarmed: Stop! You can’t disclose our bid to our competition! Just because Widge and me go way back doesn’t stop that being commercially sensitive information. Revealing our bid is unprofessional.
WIDGE: I’m fine with it.
ROI: Well of course you are – you know Susbiz can’t pay as much as we can. That doesn’t give Sithru the right to negotiate in public.
WIDGE, looking at SITHRU: If I may…?
SITHRU: Be my guest.
WIDGE: ROI, if you’d been bothered to check Ecosystem’s website, or actually taken anything Sithru had said at face value, rather than making your cynical assumptions, you’d know all this.
Ecosystem, is, in fact, an ecosystem. It has no bank account. Its goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, unmediated by any proxy, including money, or … what did you call it, Sithru?
WIDGE flicks back through notebook.
SITHRU: Positive-interest bank-debt currencies. More simply, cowrie shells.
WIDGE: Thanks. I’ll keep calling it ‘money’, for convenience. But an ecosystem, like Sithru’s, is not a zero-sum, closed-loop system, ROI. They use the same metric as climate scientists. What was it again, Sithru?
SITHRU: Metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent reduced or sequestered. More simply, CO2e.
WIDGE: That’s why they don’t have a bank account. Which invalidates any bid denominated in fiat currencies, like yours. The amount of dollars you offered was irrelevant.
ROI: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
WIDGE: Of course you don’t. You’ve not listened to anything Sithru said, or any of my attempts to explain.
ROI: But it makes no sense! Why has Ecosystem gone to all the trouble of developing these products if no one can use them?
WIDGE: We can use them, we just don’t have to pay for them.
ROI: So what was all that secret bid stuff about then?
SITHRU: What secret bid?
WIDGE, explaining to SITHRU: ROI still doesn’t understand radical transparency.
ROI: Will one of you please start talking to me in plain language that a regular business person can understand?
WIDGE, to SITHRU: May I?
SITHRU: Go ahead. You’ve done an excellent job so far.
WIDGE, glancing at Sithru: Radical transparency means everything is public, by default.
SITHRU nods in approval.
WIDGE: So data is open source, never behind a paywall.
SITHRU nods again.
WIDGE: Methodologies are published, not patented and hidden in black boxes.
SITHRU nods again.
WIDGE: Contracts, Memoranda Of Understanding and any other partnerships or transactions that go beyond simply using their free products, are also published in full.
ROI, still baffled, now somewhat angry: So what’s the point of it all?
SITHRU, equally baffled, but not angry: Reducing carbon emissions.
WIDGE: Remember their Goal, ROI? ‘Speeding Up Carbon Drawdown’? It mentions ‘carbon’, but not ‘money’.
SITHRU: That’s often the problem with anything with ‘green’ in the name.
ROI: But all our products all have the word ‘green’ in them!
SITRHU: So does this event.
ROI: Are you saying that everything with ‘green’ in it is greenwash?
SITRHU: No. But being vague about the problem is likely to make any solution ineffective.
WIDGE: Susbiz is going to review all of our products and company reports to make them more specific about exactly how they’re going to reduce carbon. We’re going to prove it by using Sithru’s products.
SITRHU: Showing always beats telling.
WIDGE: Our comms team is already searching our website for any mention of the word ‘green’, and deleting it if we can’t measure its impact in CO2e. They’re drafting a press release now titled ‘If we talk more about carbon, we’ll make more money’.
SITRHU:Nice. Tell them to beware of unspecific strap-lines like ‘This Planet Ain’t Gonna Save Itself’. Such vagueness leaves quite a bit of wiggle room which tends to get filled in by Money, and squeezes out Carbon reduction.
WIDGE, to SITHRU: Top tip, Sithru, thanks.
Back to ROI, whose mouth has been agape for some time, accompanying a deepening frown: Susbiz is going to use all four products Sithru told us about, plus some others. and encourage everyone in and outside of Susbiz to do the same, from our suppliers to our customers, to our employees and families. Their products are all free to use, as they’re designed to reduce emissions, not generate shareholder value.
ROI: But…but…but…
WIDGE and SITHRU look at ROI, patiently: But all those so-called ‘free’ products are actually collecting data, aren’t they?
SITHRU: Naturally. We can’t reduce emissions if we get nothing in return for all our effort in designing our products.
ROI: Aha! I see your game, now. You’re just like all those Silicon Valley social media giants. You start off offering everyone an attractive free product, and once everyone’s hooked you start selling all the data you gathered, and charging for what used to be free!
WIDGE: That only works if you put the data behind a paywall, or the IP in a patent-protected black box. Ecosystem does neither.
SITHRU, helpfully: Also, you’d need a bank account, which we don’t have.
WIDGE: Also, to monetize data, at some point you’d have to include personal and financial data. Ecosystem doesn’t collect such data, so can’t monetise it.
SITHRU: Quite right. It would distract us from our Goal of ‘Speeding Up carbon
drawdown by Helping the Inactive Become Active’, and can’t be measured in CO2e.
ROI: So what was all that ‘selling’ your products for then? What are you doing here, if you don’t have a bank account?
WIDGE starts to respond. SITHRU places a restraining hand on WIDGE’s arm.
SITHRU, to WIDGE: It’s kind of you to try, Widge, but I’d advise you not to waste your time.
WIDGE, to SITHRU: But I’m going to explain to ROI how publishing contracts and Memoranda Of Understanding with Ecosystem is the most convincing possible way for a business to prove it’s not greenwashing….
SITHRU, hand again on WIDGE’s arm: I think you’ll find you’re too late.
WIDGE looks round to find ROI has left the table, and is now trying to engage a departing attendee in conversation, presenting a name card and a Cashbiz flyer as they walk away.
WIDGE and SITHRU raise wine glasses. Their eyes meet, as if by accident.
SITHRU: To speeding up carbon drawdown…
WIDGE: …by helping the inactive become active.
They sip in a silent toast, eyes locked, as ROI walks into a stationary truck.
THE END
***
Happy Endings
Which ending did you prefer, A or B?
See Through’s ‘Tour de France’ model predicts that around 9 in 10 business leaders are ROIs, and around 1 in 20 are Widges.
It also predicts that once the Widges of this world embrace radical transparency, ROIs are obliged to either follow, or explain why they’re choosing to pay for inaccurate greenwash badges instead of earning free accurate ones, to their shareholders, funders, insurers, staff, customers, children and grandchildren.
- 5 Ways To Measurably Reduce Carbon Without Money outlines some ways non-financial transactions work.
- Money, It’s a Gaslight explains why problems caused by money may not always be best solved by money.
- The Music Business: Cynically Greenwashing? Obtusely Naive? details examples from the live music industry.
- See Through Carbon Pilot 2 shows how they, and other bands, could avoid such accusations.
For a real-world version of this fictional explanation at Change Now 2026 in Paris (in 4 parts rather than 3 Acts):
- See Through Together Greenwash Sniff Test | Part 1, The Challenge
- See Through Together Greenwash Sniff Test | Part 2 – The Test
- See Through Together Greenwash Sniff Test | Part 3 – The Results
- See Through Together Greenwash Sniff Test | Part 4 – The Answer?