There’s a lot of push from consumers for big businesses to play their part in the plastic crisis. We’re demanding less plastic packaging, fewer unsustainable products, and that companies use their immense power and money to stand up and speak out. Some businesses are attempting to be more sustainable: more regional resource usage or more vegan and vegetarian options. Others are using their platforms to educate and raise awareness for issues. I don’t know about you, but Pornhub wasn’t exactly in the forefront of my mind for this type of responsibility. 

Perhaps they should’ve been, as they are one of the leading adult video streaming websites, and they have over 100 million visitors a day. Their reach is huge. However, the porn industry has a long history of doing all the wrong things, including but not limited to, Pornhub’s own history of exploiting performers and supporting piracy. Is this new campaign doing more harm than good, or should we give them the benefit of the doubt? 

The “Dirtiest Porn Ever” campaign, launched in August 2019, centers around an 12-minute adult film shot on a beach in the Caribbean, one of the dirtiest in the world, according to Pornhub. Each time the video is watched all the way through, Pornhub makes a donation to Ocean Polymers, a British recycling technology company that cleans beaches and turns plastics into fuel. It should be pointed out that this isn’t the first philanthropy that Pornhub has become involved in, as their charitable arm Pornhub Cares has also led campaigns in the past to plant trees and save the bees. Let’s not pat them on the back quite yet, though. Many companies make a show of being more environmentally conscious, but in reality, what they’re doing isn’t always that helpful and can actually be fairly harmful. 

Beach cleanup is one of the best forms of “greenwashing” a company can do if they want to appear more environmentally sustainable. Many companies are a part of the Plastics Industry Association fund and have been since as early as the sixties. The Intercept explains this phenomenon:

The earliest example of this is the famous “Crying Indian” advertisement funded by many soda companies, including Coca Cola and Pepsi. In this ad, there is an Italian actor playing a Native American who is crying over the litter in a river. This ad turns the responsibility onto the consumer, and makes the companies seem as if they care about the environment. So why does Pornhub, an online streaming website, need to seem more environmentally friendly? Well, according to the Shift Project, a carbon transition thinktank, online video streaming makes up 1% of global carbon emissions. One percent may not sound like very much, but porn makes up a whole third of online video streaming. This means that porn streaming produces the same amount of emissions as the entire country of Belgium.

How else is this campaign actually problematic? The video is shot on an island in the global south, where most of the people that are currently, or will in the future, be most heavily affected by climate change live. The overall campaign reflects the sometimes-superficial nature of the western environmental movement, which patronizingly criticizes less developed countries while doing nothing to actually help the problem. Showing a dirty beach in this part of the world that is essentially victimized by the rest and implying that the white couple being filmed on it can help “save” it somehow is an issue very common in environmental discussions. The western world is the one causing the bulk of the issue with overconsumption, and then they hypocritically try to tell the global south how to fix it. Nothing is being done to address the root cause of the issue: big businesses refusing to change their business models. Instead of hitting the problem from the end of it, they could be campaigning against the root of the problem - the production of plastics. The fact is, it doesn’t matter how much Pornhub pays to clean things up, because plastic production by major companies is so massive that beaches will be filled with plastic again almost immediately.  

It could be argued that Pornhub’s campaign isn’t directly harmful, and that raising awareness is better than doing nothing. However, it represents everything that is wrong with the environmental movement - it turns the responsibility onto the consumers, and away from big businesses that are producing the plastics.  Now is no longer the time for big businesses to be just spreading awareness—it is time for them to change their practices so that we can live more sustainably and build a better future. What can companies like Pornhub do, if simply raising awareness is not enough? Pornhub’s daily revenue is approximately $1,064,833, and about 300 million per year (according to Worth of Web). Funds could be spent on more expensive, but at the same time more effective, methods of cleaning up beaches, such as targeting the source of the issue instead of cleaning up the aftermath.

This means doing things like investing massive amounts of money in companies that are focused on plastic alternatives, engaging with lobbyist groups for political agendas like the Green New Deal in the US, or engaging with similar campaigns in other nations. Porn is isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and like it or not, companies like Pornhub have a lot of power and resources. If they’re going to claim to be doing their part to help in the global climate crisis, then they should actually do their part, which could have massive impacts. 

By Kirsten Lootens

NYU Student, avid reader, loves traveling and meeting new people.