This project was funded by the Federal Environment Agency and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. The funds are made available by resolution of the German Bundestag. The EEB is responsible for the content of this publication.
Money makes mischief. As investment in the energy transition grows, so does the risk of the criminal-minded seizing an opportunity to make a quick buck in the green sector.
Environmental or “green” corruption is highly profitable with a comparably low risk of punishment. Compared to other criminal activity, victims of environmental crime are uniquely hard to identify as damage affects biodiversity and the environment and humans often only indirectly. Impacts can be cross-border and unfold over time. Defining victimhood when classified waste is dumped across national borders or providing legal proof of pollution damage to a lung a thousand kilometers away are tough challenges. But let’s be clear – green corruption is not a victimless crime.
For example, he UNICRI research, “Green Corruption – The case in Italy”, outlines how such crimes cost Italy approximately €10 billion per year, how corruption in the construction sector has decreased the earthquake resilience of buildings, that there are landslides caused by indiscriminate use of land, and that illicit waste disposal caused an increase of cancer diseases and congenital malformations in affected regions. Even when offenders are convicted, the fines are often so small that they are not dissuasive and are treated as a routine cost of doing business – in these cases, crime pays.
Most environmental crimes require some type of fraud, document forgery, or permit manipulation, and out of all crime categories, they benefit the most from corruption. From start to finish, much of the environmental crime is fueled by bribes. The Basel Institute on Governance coins this inevitable link between environmental crime and abuse of public authority “green corruption.” Green corruption weakens environmental standards, distorts markets, undermines licensing and permitting regimes, and, most importantly, erodes public trust in spending for environmental protection while harming human health. The victims are all of us.
To be clear, corruption – green or otherwise – is a criminal offense across all justice systems in Europe. It is essentially the abuse of authority for private gain, whether through bribes, nepotism, embezzlement, or influence peddling. While often linked to abuse of public office, it can also occur between businesses, and the benefits may extend beyond cash to power, favours, or influence.
Turning back to the “green” part of green corruption: Europe already recognises that environmental crime is a growing threat. Globally, it is generally considered to be the third most profitable crime category, behind drug trafficking and counterfeiting. The EU’s new Environmental Crime Directive is a step forward in criminalising and punishing environmentally harmful acts, after they’ve occurred, but Europe is still lagging far behind in prevention.
Effective prevention begins with acknowledging that green corruption is the primary enabler of environmental crime. Illegal logging largely depends on fraudulent permits, cross-border illegal waste dumping is enabled by complicit local officials, and the illegal emission of pollutants is often owed to cheating of measuring devices and the evasion of public controls.
Crime threatens the speed of the much-needed transition into green technologies. As investment pours in, the risks rise: where money and power concentrate, so does the potential for abuse. Beyond the direct environmental damage, environmental crime undermines the administrative structures in charge of rolling out the transition. And to make matters worse, it provides low-risk revenue streams that bolster other organised crimes such as drug or human trafficking, as most criminal organisations do not limit themselves to only one specific type of illegal activity. Tolerating green corruption today not only harms people and the planet but also erodes public trust in tomorrow’s green economy.
The good news is that tried and tested corruption prevention and enforcement tools successful in other areas of crime also work on environmental crime. On the prevention side, Europe can implement due diligence and reporting standards on supply chains, increase the protection for whistleblowers and against SLAPPs, strengthen codes of ethics and civil servant training, and improve the exchange of administrations across borders.
Once enforcement is needed, Europe can codify environmental standards, criminalise environmentally harmful conduct, apply effective and proportionate penalties, and improve the collaboration between different law enforcement bodies and those individuals and NGOs who are on the frontlines in detecting environmental crimes. And when in doubt about who is behind environmental damage, then just “follow the money”.
