Corporate responsibility. Environmental impact assessment. Greenwashing. Call them environmental lingua – terminologies that were originally conceived for the common good of environmental sustainable utilisation and coexistence, but which today are liberally bandied around to cover up political fraud and deception by the ruling clique. The phrases sound sleek, cool and slick don’t they?

I posit that the challenge of environmental deception, sustainability deception, greenwashing or environmental impact assessment deception in Uganda is a ‘presidentialist’ scheme to promote the personal interests and projects or programmes, and which are predetermined by the president. Usually, they are detrimental, but prosecuted as proletarian.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was innovated by Sorensen in 1971 to aid planners to reconcile conflicting land-uses. Later it was seen and promoted as an aid to decision-making in the project planning cycle – not to stop development.

Before the onset of Environmental Impact Assessment project planning made no reference to the environment, let alone integrate it in the process of planning. Project planners, funders and governments (read decision-makers) thought, believed and were convinced that feasibility studies and Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) were enough to decide whether a project was suitable for implementation.

Unfortunately, the EIA process is very expensive. Indeed, one of the main concerns of decision-makers and those carrying out EIA relates to the costs of various steps in the EIA process in relation to the project planning cycle, including selection of actions or screening; determining the issues in detail or scoping). Evidence of relative costs of the various EIA methods is even scarcer than evidence on their frequency of use.

Otherwise, the cost of an EIA method depends on the number of impacts that have been assessed. But the decision (of the costs) is not made by the EIA method used but by those involved in identifying and selecting the impacts for the EIA process.

Environmental deception or sustainability deception

Developers (generally governments, investors and funders) separately or jointly saw the EIA process as a roadblock to their choices and decisions in development. They started to individually or jointly falsify the EIA process in order to give the impression that their projects are environmentally friendly. This was the beginning of environmental deception.

Environmental deception is often referred to as greenwashing. It involves misleading marketing tactics that portray a firm or a product by a firm as more environmentally-friendly.

The term “greenwashing” – a practice that on the ace of it – appears to align with sustainability but often masks a deeper truth. Greenwashing not only misleads consumers, but it also carries harmful implications for the environment, damages the reputation of businesses and erodes consumer trust (Chitranjali Tiwari, 2023). Sustainability deception of firms and governments predominate (e.g. Earth Warrier Lifestyle, 2024).

Zhige Yu (2024) investigated the strategic use of deceptive environmental disclosures by firms to obscure their real environmental risks with the aim of receiving capital market rewards. His analysis unexpectedly reveals that this deceptive disclosure strategy is accompanied by greater opacity in financial reporting, which facilitates short-term benefits. However, these benefits tend to diminish as investors become more informed.

Stone Prime (2024) observes that in an era of the craze for environmental sustainability, which has become an idea of critical concern for consumers, policy-makers and businesses, the concept of greenwashing has emerged as a critical issue in the 21st century.

Stone Prime states that greenwashing as “the practice of falsely promoting an organisation’s environmental efforts undermines genuine sustainability initiatives and deceives the stakeholders about the true environmental impact of corporate activities.

Since government is also corporate, it frequently undermines genuine development by approving such initiatives to consume environmentally unfriendly projects and programmes that impact the citizens very negatively. Greenwashing by corporates in thus a form of consumer deception (Santiago Lombana, 2024). Corporates use terms such as “100 per cent sustainable,” “green,” “eco-friendly,” or “100 per cent renewable” on their trademarks, branding, packaging, containers, or advertisements without having concrete environmental actions to substantiate those claims (Santiago Lombana, 2024).

Corporate sustainability deception or corporate sustainability fraud continues to predominate in the EIA process and to cause great suffering especially in the poor countries where corporates undertake projects and programmes not so much to spur development as to make money.

Universally every EIA report screens out contradictory evaluations of a project and ends with the statement that “The project will not significantly affect the environment negatively. In undemocratic societies many projects, however potentially destructive to culture, social life and the ecological-biological, socioeconomic, sociocultural and sociopolitical environment, is cushioned from the EIA process so that the projects are implemented politically without environmental constraints.

Most such projects and programmes end up being exercises in corruption, consume a lot of public money, exact high debt burden and are nothing but white elephant, far below what they promised in terms of development, transformation and progress. 

Kosh and Danner (2025) say that there are many shades of green deception or greenwashing and that it has undermined the corporate image and credibility. However, it should be seen as taking place in all dimensions of the environment and across them.

Vague, misleading and inaccurate claims may be made in the ecological-biological dimension, socio-economic dimension, sociocultural dimension and temporal dimension. Claims of environmental improvement in the ecological-biological dimension after implementation of a project or programme will be made. It will also be claimed that there will be socioeconomic improvement, or that the project will not adversely affect the cultural or organisational structure and the cultural integrity of project- or programme-impacted community.  Timescales will be attached to the project or programme and claims made that the project or programme will be concluded in a given time when it is all deception. Sometimes to conceal the ineffectiveness of a project or programme, no time limit is put.

This kind of deception is exacerbated by political corruption and/or political deception. In fact, it is now difficult to separate environmental, sustainability deception or greenwashing or EIA deception from political deception. Political deception ensures that the institutions established to act as environmental regulators are penetrated by political interests to such an extent that it is what the EIA report that power desires that is presented to the regulator for approval.

As companies continue to employ vague and misleading labels, it is essential for the media to maintain its commitment to investigative reporting and consumer education. By providing accurate and reliable information, media outlets can empower consumers to make informed choices and encourage the companies to adopt sustainability practices that are environmentally-friendly. Continued media efforts are crucial in ensuring that environmental deception or greenwashing or sustainability deception or EIA deception is exposed, challenged, and ultimately eliminated (Ziyan, 2023). Information, correct information is power.

I want to end this thesis by looking at the challenge pf environmental deception or sustainability deception or greenwashing or EIA deception by using the case of Uganda because here, presidentialism has penetrated EIA and made it almost useless to projects or programmes desired by the president. This means that environmental quality assurance (EQA), which would only be possible where EIA is not deceptive (i.e. in the absence of environmental deception or sustainability deception). Will use the example of the highly controversial, corrupt and heavily debt-burdened Bujagali Dam project.

The controversy of Bujagali Dam in Uganda is well known throughout the world. It was initiated by the environmental deception or sustainability deception of the developers (the AES Nile Power and the government of Uganda). It pitied environmentalists against these two. It drove the President of Uganda, Tibuhaburwa Museveni, to baptise the environmentalists as “environmental terrorists” and to pronounce his philosophy of development as “infrastructure development first, nature and environment next and people last”.

The controversy of Bujagali developed in the late 1990s and persisted for over 17 years. Mainly due to concerns over its potential environmental and social impacts, particularly concerning the compensation and resettlement of displaced communities. Environmental critics, mainly of the National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) and the International Rivers Network (IRN), also questioned the project’s efficiency, arguing that the majority of Ugandans, especially those in rural areas, wouldn’t directly benefit from the increased electricity supply. Muramuzi and Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2005 wrote that the Bujagali Dam project, which was proposed in the late 1990s, is one of the most controversial dam projects in the world, and according to the Uganda government was set to continue. The government in April [2005] announced that it had selected the Aga Khan’s Industrial Promotion Services (IPS) to build the Dam at Dumbbell Island 8 km from the Owen Falls Dam downstream of the River Nile.

The National Resistance Movement (NRM) government initially approved the Bujagali Hydropower Dam on the River Nile in Uganda in 1994 as the lowest-cost option to increase power production and thus increase access to electricity in the country while reducing cost. It was finally completed in 2012 after 18 years of controversy that delayed the dam’s construction (Centre for Public Impact, 2017). EIA deception engineered the project.

The project emerged as the world’s most expensive hydropower project. An EIA for the public and another for project funders were produced. The cost of the project increased from $580 million at inception to $860 million and finally $902 million ($3.6 million per MW) at completion. Independent investigations by the Ugandan parliamentary ad-hoc committee on energy put the dam’s actual cost at $1.3 billion (about $5.2 million per MW).

Bujagali dam has proved to be a white elephant project.  NAPE reasoned that the costly dam harmed Uganda’s chances of pursuing more sustainable energy alternatives, pointing out that the Bujagali Dam failed to help the 86 per cent of Uganda’s population who are not connected to the national grid (CPI, 2017). With the sustainability deception of the EIA and the government of Uganda, Bujagali Dam was destined to be an unsustainable project. Government subsidies, including tax waivers and debt refinancing, have been implemented to support the project, raising concerns about taxpayer burden and transparency.

The government provided a $75 million subsidy to the Bujagali dam project to ensure construction started on time. This money was intended to be repaid when the government secured a loan from the World Bank. Additionally, a $360 million loan from the World Bank, also supporting the dam’s construction, was approved. In 2021 Ush21 billion was spent by government on Buying Back Bujagali Dam (Kigundu, 2021).

On February 18, 2025 Members of Parliament have raised concerns over the Bujagali Hydropower Project’s tax waiver, exposing alleged financial miscalculations and possible overcharging of Ugandans (parliament, 2025).

Therefore, environmental deception or greenwashing or sustainability deception or EIA deception is real in Uganda’s development in general and in the Bujagali Dam project in particular. The project drained public money during construction and it continues to drain public money in the post-construction period. It is unsustainable and the promised 250 MW of electricity is unlikely to be realised. It is a burden to the taxpayers of Uganda.

Prof Frank Grad of the Law School at Columbia University in 1992 stated thus:

Our experience with EIA is that when you predict major environmental impacts, the likelihood is that you will get major environmental impacts. The only problem is that you don’t even get the impact you expect”.

Environmental exploitation

The environment was simply for exploitation, not a life-support system. It, would, therefore, not serve as a restraint or constraint to project development or to overall development which was narrowly conceived as economic development geared towards growing the money economy.

Besides cultural, social and political issues or impacts in development did not matter. All that mattered was execution of projects or programmes to generate money for investors. The emphasis was investing money to produce goods and services to generate more money for the investors. The environment, as I said was for nothing but exploitation to support the evolving money economy.  Generally, this remained the goal even in the new environmental era.

With the passage of time, the environment became a measure of civilisation, following the growth and proliferation of the global environment movement because of what the construction of large dams on the world’s big rivers as well as infrastructure development impacts were exacting on the human environment, ecologies and humanity.

For God and my country

• A Tell report / By Oweyegha-Afunaduula / Environmental Historian and Conservationist Centre for – Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA), Seeta, Mukono, Uganda.

About the Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis (CCTAA)

The CCTAA was innovated by Hyuha Mukwanason, Oweyegha-Afunaduula and Mahir Balunywa in 2019 to the rising decline in the capacity of graduates in Uganda and beyond to engage in critical thinking and reason coherently besides excellence in academics and academic production. The three scholars were convinced that after academic achievement the world outside the ivory tower needed graduates that can think critically and reason coherently towards making society and the environment better for human gratification. They reasoned between themselves and reached the conclusion that disciplinary education did not only narrow the thinking and reasoning of those exposed to it but restricted the opportunity to excel in critical thinking and reasoning, which are the ultimate aim of education. They were dismayed by the truism that the products of disciplinary education find it difficult to tick outside the boundaries of their disciplines; that when they provide solutions to problems that do not recognise the artificial boundaries between knowledges, their solutions become the new problems. They decided that the answer was a new and different medium of learning and innovating, which they characterised as “The Centre for Critical Thinking and Alternative Analysis” (CCTAA).For God and my country.

Further reading

Anam Tariq and Sania Ashraf (2024). Greenwashing Tip Sheet: How to Spot and Avoid Sustainability Deception. Rare, September 23 2024. https://rare.org/opinions-insights/greenwashing-tip-sheet-how-to-spot-and-avoid-sustainability-deception/ Visited on 8 May 2025 at 13:59 pm EAT.

Centre for Public Interest (2017). The Bujagali Dam Project in Uganda. CPI, 28 July 2017. https://centreforpublicimpact.org/public-impact-fundamentals/the-bujagali-dam-project-in-uganda/#:~:text=The%20public%20impact,in%20the%20country%20actually%20increased visited on 09 May 2025 at 07:40 am EAT..

Chitranjali Tiwari (2023). Greenwashing: Deceptive Environmental Practices and Impact. Illuminem, September 01 2023. https://illuminem.com/illuminemvoices/greenwashing-deceptive-environmental-practices-and-their-impact Visited on 08 May 2025 at 12:39 pm EAT.

Earth Warrier Lifestyle (2024). Greenwashing: Navigating the Landscape of Environmental Deception. Earth Warrier Lifestyle, March 7 2024. https://earthwarriorlifestyle.com/blogs/news/greenwashing-navigating-the-landscape-of-environmental-deception?srsltid=AfmBOooey1uB0bvGFvMiP6i5wYxWwolMw9cTBHqAPnEg10-q1VV0yM77 Visited on 8 May 2025 at 13:48 pm EAT.

Kiggundu, Joseph (2021). Shs 21b on Buying Back Bujagali Dam. Daily Monitor, January 06, 2018 https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/shs21b-spent-on-buying-back-bujagali-dam-1734306 Visited on 09 May 2025 at 08:46 pm.

Koch Thomas and Nora Denner (2025). Different shades of green deception. Greenwashing’s adverse effects on corporate image and credibility. Public Relations Review, Volume 51, Issue 1, March 2025. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811124001000 Visited on 8 May 2025 at 13:30 pm EAT.

Muramuzi Frank and Oweyegha-Afunaduula (2005). Uganda’s Bujagali Dam Project: A Dam Bad Dam. Pambazuka News, 28.07. 2005 https://pambazuka.org/index.php/land-environment/uganda%E2%80%99s-bujagali-project-dam-bad-idea Visited on 09 May 2025 at 08:07 am EAT.

National Association of Professional Environmentalists (2007). The Unresolved Issues in the Bujagali Dam Project in Uganda, June 2007, National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE).

Oktarika Ayoe Sandha and Chandra Puspita Kurniawati (2023). Sustainability Fraud: Greenwashing. Researchgate, Mat 2023. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370527285_SUSTAINABILITY_FRAUD_GREENWASHING Visited on 8 May 2025 at 14:18 pm EAT.

Oweyegha-Afunaduula Fred Charles and Isaac Afunaduula (2004). Conflict in Development: The Ethics and Bioethics of Bujagali Dam. Researchgate, January 2004. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336851650_CONFLICTS_IN_DEVELOPMENT_THE_ETHICS_AND_BIOETHICS_OF_BUJAGALI_DAM_UGANDA_BY_Occasional_Paper_on_Ethics_and_Bioethics_of_Bujagali_dam_for_NAPESBC_Anti_Bujagali_Dam_Task_Committee_Environment_and_Develo Visited on 09 May 2025 at 08:02 am EAT.

Stone Prime (2024). Deconstructing Greenwashing: Environmental Deception in Corporate practices. Stone Prime, August 30 2024, https://www.stoneprime.com.sg/post/deconstructing-greenwashing-a-comprehensive-analysis-of-environmental-deception-in-corporate-practi Visited on 8 May 2025 at 13:04 pm EAT.

Zhige Yu (2024). Strategic Environmental Deception. S & P Global, 13 Dec 2024 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5045517 Visited on 8 May 20 25 at 12:54 pm EAT.

Ziyan, Jihane (2023). Greenwashing Unveiled: Deception in the Name of Sustainability. EcoMENA, June 18 2023. https://www.ecomena.org/greenwashing-deception-in-the-name-of-sustainability/ Visited on 8 May 2025 at 14:06 pm EAT.