As governments and policymakers prepare to convene in Antalya, Türkiye, for the COP31 climate conference, a critical blind spot in the global sustainability agenda is coming into focus: the environmental footprint of industries built on addictive products and compulsive consumption. While corporations increasingly promote incremental improvements—such as recyclable cigarette packaging, lightweight glass bottles, or data centers powered by renewable energy—these gestures often serve as a veneer, obscuring the far more significant environmental damage inherent in their business models.
The strategy of “greenwashing” thrives when narrow, favorable metrics are allowed to stand in for a company’s total ecological impact. A company may boast about reduced carbon emissions from a single manufacturing process while its total sales volume—and the associated resource demands—continues to climb. This disparity between efficiency gains and absolute environmental impact is a core concern for public health and environmental advocates heading to COP31.
The tobacco industry serves as a stark example. According to 2022 World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, the industry is responsible for roughly 84 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions and 22 billion metric tons of water use annually. These figures reflect the entire life cycle of a cigarette, from intensive agricultural land use and curing to manufacturing and eventual disposal. A recyclable pack represents only a marginal change in a vastly resource-heavy operation. Similarly, alcohol production and the infrastructure supporting digital addiction—such as platforms designed to maximize user screen time—impose substantial, often overlooked, costs on water, energy, and raw materials.
The hidden consequences of these industries are increasingly showing up in our public infrastructure. Recent research led by the Turkish Green Crescent (Yeşilay) underscores the necessity of looking beyond the point of sale. By analyzing wastewater treatment plants across seven Turkish cities, including Antalya, researchers identified persistent residues of psychoactive substances. While treatment plants are essential, their ability to remove chemical compounds varies, meaning that the environmental burden of consumption is often shifted directly onto municipal authorities and public health systems.
This, however, is not a matter of blaming the consumer. The focus of policymakers should instead shift toward the production, marketing, and product-design decisions of industries that profit from compulsive use. As the climate crisis intensifies, environmental policy must integrate these concerns into broader adaptation and mitigation strategies. Disasters and social displacement caused by climate change can erode mental health, potentially increasing the risk of substance abuse. Therefore, robust climate adaptation plans must include accessible psychological support and addiction services.
Advocates at COP31 argue that the time for voluntary, selective corporate reporting is over. They are calling for governments to mandate transparent, independently verifiable reporting of total resource use, emissions, and waste across the entire life cycle of a product. If corporations want to claim sustainability, they must account for the costs currently borne by the public, whether through chemical waste in water systems or the broader societal impacts of addiction.
The challenge for industries at COP31 is straightforward: They must prove that their total environmental harm is decreasing, not just that they have made a marginal improvement to a single component of their supply chain. As resources come under increasing pressure, the era of using a “greener” package to shield a damaging business model from scrutiny must come to an end. True sustainability requires a full accounting of all costs—environmental, social, and industrial—to ensure that corporate profit does not come at the expense of a sustainable future.
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