Environmentalists have accused the hit reality TV show MasterChef Australia of greenwashing after the Network Ten program announced sponsorship deals with gas companies.
The official sponsors for MasterChef’s 16th season include the Australian Gas Network (AGN), a subsidiary of Australian Gas Infrastructure Group, which delivers gas to more than two million homes and businesses.
The deal was revealed at the season launch on Monday. Gas industry representatives and Paramount, Network Ten’s owner, said the show would use open flame cooktops that run on biomethane in general competition and compete in a barbecue challenge on grills that use hydrogen. The biomethane is supplied by Jemena, which owns gas pipelines and distribution networks, and AGN.
Biomethane is created from organic waste such as human or animal waste or food. It otherwise has the same properties as fossil gas, but proponents argue it is more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels because it is releasing carbon that is already in the biological cycle, and has not been extracted from the ground.
The hydrogen used on MasterChef is “grey hydrogen” made using gas through a process known as steam methane reforming, and also leads to emissions into the atmosphere. A MasterChef Australia website said the emissions would be offset by buying carbon credits. It said renewable hydrogen, which has zero emissions, was “intended for use in future seasons”.
Conservation groups including Environment Victoria and the Climate and Health Alliance said they had written to MasterChef Australia urging them to switch to induction cooktops, a step taken by MasterChef programs in the UK, Italy, Denmark, and Spain.
Environment Victoria’s climate campaign manager, Joy Toose, said the gas sponsorship deal “only helps to greenwash the gas industry and create a false impression that biomethane and hydrogen are good replacements for methane gas”.
“Australian Gas Networks have been peddling these gases as solutions to replace methane gas in an attempt to protect their massive profits – but in reality they can’t do the job,” she said.
Toose said the MasterChef deal was “completely out of sync” with changing attitudes to gas, particularly in Victoria where the program is filmed. The Victorian government has banned gas connections in new homes on climate and health grounds.
“MasterChef is uniquely positioned to influence Australia’s cultural landscape as the nation’s most successful cooking program. It should be promoting healthier electric induction cooking that protects our kids’ health rather than peddling the gas industry’s false solutions,” she said.
“We know that neither biomethane nor hydrogen are credible solutions to our gas problem and both are still harmful to human health.”
Alison Reeve, the Grattan Institute’s climate change and energy deputy program director, said the sponsorship was “disappointing” and that the gas industry’s shift to saying people could use lower-emissions forms of gas was a tactic to encourage the use of its infrastructure.
She said lower-emission gases such as biomethane and hydrogen “at best” kept carbon dioxide levels consistent with current levels, but did not reduce them. They were also not economically competitive with electricity or fossil fuel gas, she said.
Ben Ewald from Doctors for the Environment said a gas cooktop was worse for health than clean electricity as it increased the risk of child asthma by 42%.
Advertisements run during MasterChef said “renewable gas” was a “part of the big picture” for Australia’s energy transition. “See it in action on MasterChef Australia,” the advertisements said.
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In a joint statement, Network Ten and Endemol Shine Australia, which produces MasterChef Australia, said the show had used gas and “this season we’ve been able to use biomethane, a renewable gas made from organic waste”.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young argued the deal was simply to boost the image of AGN, as a supplier of infrastructure to deliver gas but not the gas itself, and “give them a bit of a green tinge”. She said biomethane gas and “grey” hydrogen were not available to households.
“All it’s doing is promoting the gas company and their brand and giving it a social license,” Hanson-Young said in an interview for Guardian Australia’s Australian Politics podcast. “You can’t ring up your gas company and say, ‘I’ll have bio methane thanks or or hydrogen’…. It’s a rubbish argument.”
She said “grey” hydrogen was just regular hydrogen with its emissions offset by other measures.
A spokesperson for AGN said “millions of Australians love gas”, and it was “providing biomethane and hydrogen to practically demonstrate that customers can continue to cook the way they know and love with a low carbon solution that can be delivered by existing gas networks to support Australia’s transition to net zero”.
“This means Australian customers from households to large industry can retain the choice of an energy fuel that suits their needs with fewer emissions than natural gas,” it said.
The viability of delivering pure hydrogen for domestic use through existing infrastructure is as yet unproven, with a number of trials of the technology in the UK being abandoned due to either lack of supply, consumer fears or other barriers.
The president of Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association of Australia, Ross Jamieson, applauded the sponsorship. He said it showed that “carbon-renewable gas has a strong future in Australia as we transition to a net zero economy”.