Campaigners Call on World Sailing and Ben Ainslie to Oppose 'Shameful' INEOS America's Cup Greenwash

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A group of campaigners and academics has called on World Sailingโ€™s governing body to oppose US chemical giant INEOSโ€™ sponsorship of the UKโ€™s Americaโ€™s Cup team due to the companyโ€™s fracking activity. An open letter to the body, delivered to World Sailing’s London headquarters today, says the sponsorship deal goes against the โ€œenvironmentally aware behaviourโ€ that organsiation โ€œclaims to embody andย promoteโ€.

INEOS describes itself as โ€œthe biggest player in the UK shale gas industryโ€. It has licenses to explore for shale gas that cover more than one million acres of the UK.


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It is also the owner a chemicals complex in Grangemouth, Scotland, which has been subject to numerous industrial disputes and dominates a list of Scotlandโ€™s top 20 polluters. INEOS wants to use the fracked gas as an energy supply for its plasticย production.

The company is sponsoring the UKโ€™s entrant into the Americaโ€™s Cup, a high-profile sailing competition that claims to be the worldโ€™s oldest sporting competition. The UKโ€™s team is being led by British Olympic legend, Sir Ben Ainslie.INEOS has been a controversial presence in the UK. In April 2017, the company was accused of seeking to exploit Brexit to lobby for a weakening of the UKโ€™s environmentalย regulations.

It has also taken out wide-ranging injunctions against fracking protestors, which campaigners have called โ€œdraconianโ€. Its argument for the injunctions was in part based on mass social media surveillance of campaigners, DeSmog UKย revealed.


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INEOS is owned by American billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, who has ย described shale gas as a โ€œsaviourโ€ of the UK economy. He is known for his aggressive pursuit of industrial assets in the UK, including the Grangemouth petrochemical plant and refinery, Forties pipeline, and fracking licenses.

On hearing that Ratcliffeโ€™s INEOS was set to purchase the Forties pipeline from BP, an industry insider told Scotlandโ€™s Daily Record:

โ€œHoly sh*t. This would be like giving a monkey a machete โ€ฆ Letting Jim Ratcliffe loose on all the operators who feed into that pipeline is a dangerous, dangerousย ploy.โ€

In 2013, He forced the closure of the Grangemouth refinery in 2013 after a dispute with trade unions over working conditions and pensionย payments.

Todayโ€™s letter, organised by campaign group Talk Fracking, calls on World Sailing to break its silence regarding INEOSโ€™ sponsorship, saying the competition should not be associated with a company โ€œknown for its environmentally destructive practices and ongoing assault on the democratic right to protestโ€.

The letter also notes the incompatibility of INEOSโ€™ sponsorship with World Sailingโ€™s commitment to address the crisis of plastics polluting the ocean. โ€œIn the absence of urgent action against INEOS Team UK, your current contribution actively undermines these same valuesโ€, itย says.


Image: Joe Corre at the letter handover outside World Sailing headquarters in London. Credit:ย Kiย Price

Talk Fracking boss Joe Corrรฉ said that INEOS had the potential to make โ€œa vast contribution to the already growing pile of cheap plastics in the worldย today.โ€

โ€œINEOS have a horrendous environmental track record in Europe and have been responsible for toxic chemicals, leaks, fires and explosions that have endangered workers, communities and the environment. Now they plan to bring those dangers to hundreds of communities across the UK, just to make more plastics that we donโ€™tย want.

โ€œWorld Sailing entertaining the greenwasher INEOS as a sponsor of the Americaโ€™s Cup entrant Team UK smacks of total hypocrisy. They must make a stand on behalf of our Oceans, drowning inย plastic.โ€

โ€œSir Ben Ainslie should be ashamed of himself taking US$153 million of Jim Ratcliffeโ€™s dirty money to enter the Americaโ€™s Cup. Ben Ainslie turning a blind eye to what INEOS really are doesnโ€™t cutย itโ€.

World Sailing responded to the letter by pointing out that while it sanctions the race, it does not have any say over teamย sponsors.

โ€œAdvertising by racing boats must comply with World Sailingโ€™s Advertising Code within the Racing Rules of Sailing which includes an obligation for all advertising to meet generally accepted moral and ethical standardsโ€, itย notes.

INEOS has been contacted forย comment.


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image: M J Roscoe/geograph.ac.ukย CC BYSAย 2.0

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Mat was DeSmog's Special Projects and Investigations Editor, and Operations Director of DeSmog UK Ltd. He was DeSmog UKโ€™s Editor from October 2017 to March 2021, having previously been an editor at Nature Climate Change and analyst at Carbon Brief.

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