Greenwashing Silicon Valley: The legitimization of green platform capitalism through tech-on-climate discourse

Abstract

This article provides an analysis of “tech-on-climate discourse,” understood as all textual and visual materials through which major North American tech companies position themselves in relation to the climate crisis, published between 2019 and 2024. This public-facing tech-on-climate discourse includes sustainability reports, web pages, advertising, and online tools and projects. The article examines this discourse by focusing on three case studies: Amazon's Climate Pledge, Apple's Carbon Neutral campaign, and Microsoft's AI for Good and Planetary Computer programs. The cases are all designed in relation to the companies’ mission to become “carbon neutral,” each taking a different approach. Through a close analysis of these campaigns, I discuss four legitimization strategies that allow for the justification of what I call “green platform capitalism.” These strategies are expressions of an ecomodernist worldview in which economic growth is decoupled from ecological well-being and in which innovative techno-fixes make Silicon Valley a central environmental agent. This worldview (1) frames Earth as a datafied planet, (2) naturalizes digital technologies, and (3) imagines a singular “humanity” modelled after the white, male entrepreneur. In sum, tech-on-climate discourse forwards the story that with the right technological innovations and corporate interventions, Earth and life on it can be saved from the climate crisis without making changes to the operations of Big Tech beyond their own proposals, or societies at large. I position this techno-optimistic narrative within ongoing “tech-for-good” and “green AI” debates, of which the orientations are reconfigured vis-à-vis ongoing political changes in the US, and elsewhere.