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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

> The fact that Coca-Cola sponsors a climate conference is crazy to me.

It's not that crazy: Scenario: the product you make needs plastic packaging. You want to do as best you can with the constraint that you will keep shipping product. So you sponsor a climate conference to get ideas on what you can improve.

The option of "don't ship product" is not an option. Given that, what can you do instead?

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It makes perfect sense from coca cola's perspective to sponsor a climate conference, what makes no sense at all and what I think GP is getting at is that it's completely insane from the climate conference's perspective to be sponsored by coca cola.

(And please spare me the cynical explanation of why it does make sense from a cynical climate conference's perspective.)

Is it wrong for a climate conference to take money from big corporations at all?

Conflict of interest when corporations like Coca Cola engage in massive green-washing campaigns

What if they're an average company environmentally, with no green-washing?

Less concerning, though corporations are by nature usually self-interested and motivated solely by profit.

Or, you sponsor a conference that you can say you're doing something, while actually pushing your influence to make sure the most profitable actions are taken in the end.

> So you sponsor a climate conference to get ideas on what you can improve.

What kind of ideas does sponsoring give you access to that you wouldn't get otherwise?

Assuming the conference is still as big without sponsorship, maybe nothing.

But if the conference is smaller or doesn't exist because it can't afford to...

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