NEW YORK, NY — Earth Day 2025 kicked off Tuesday with its largest sponsor roster in history, featuring three oil majors, a lithium extraction operation in the Atacama, a private equity firm that owns 14 landfills, and a luxury bottled water brand called Glacier Therapy that markets itself as ‘meltwater you can trust.’
Organizers unveiled the lineup at a press event in Bryant Park, where attendees were handed reusable tote bags containing a single-use water bottle, a coupon for a hybrid SUV, and a QR code linking to a 47-page PDF titled ‘Our Journey.’
‘This year is about partnership,’ said Margot Pell, Chief Sustainability Storyteller at Verdancy Group, speaking from a stage powered by a diesel generator humming approximately nine feet behind her. ‘You can’t have a conversation about the planet without inviting the people who are actively changing it. And I mean that in every possible way.’
The keynote sponsor, ExxonMobil, debuted a limited-edition Earth Day merch drop featuring a $68 organic cotton hoodie embroidered with the phrase ‘I’m With Her,’ an arrow pointing at a picture of Earth, and, in smaller text on the inside tag, a disclaimer that the hoodie was shipped from a facility in Vietnam via three layovers.
The hoodie sold out in eight minutes. A resale listing appeared on Grailed before the event had ended.
Glacier Therapy, the bottled water brand, distributed roughly 12,000 individually wrapped 8-ounce bottles to attendees, each labeled with a serial number, a Spotify playlist, and a small card explaining that the water inside was sourced from a Patagonian glacier that ‘wanted to be experienced.’ A spokesperson clarified the glacier did not, technically, consent, ‘but it also didn’t say no.’
Park ranger Denise Albrecht, who was present in an official capacity at a separate Earth Day cleanup in Prospect Park, said her team of 30 volunteers spent four hours collecting trash from the previous weekend’s Earth Day Pre-Game Festival, sponsored by a different oil company. ‘We pulled 600 pounds of garbage out of the pond,’ she said. ‘Most of it was tote bags.’
At the Bryant Park event, attendees were treated to a panel discussion titled ‘Carbon, Conscience, and Couture,’ moderated by a TikTok creator who described herself as a ‘climate-adjacent lifestyle voice’ and whose most recent video was a haul from a fast-fashion brand that has been sued in three countries. She told the audience the planet was ‘literally giving’ and asked them to clap if they recycled.
By 4 p.m., the park had been mostly cleared, save for a small crowd watching a man in a polar bear costume hand out flyers for a cryptocurrency called EARTHCOIN. The generator was still running. Nobody had unplugged it.