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From: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer9/greenwash.html
Corporate Europe Observer - Issue 9
The tenth anniversary meeting of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro will take place in September 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
In stark contrast with the optimism with which citizens' movements initially viewed the first Summit, expectations are low for the "World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)".
In the nine years that have passed since Rio, corporations and their lobby groups have perfected their greenwash skills, convincing governments and global bodies to allow them to operate increasingly unregulated in the global market. They have successfully managed to promote the primacy of 'free trade' agreements over environmental and social treaties.
In the run-up to Johannesburg next year, a large-scale business campaign is on the way to consolidate these gains and ward off the backlash against the neoliberal global economic model. Corporate greenwash and co-optation efforts will reach unprecedented levels.
The Earth Summit
The 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, nearly ten years ago, was a milestone in the global environmental debate.
On the positive side, important linkages were made between destructive processes such as climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, global trade, unregulated corporate investment, consumption, production, debt accumulation and structural adjustment.
What was sorely lacking, however, was satisfactory concrete outcome.
This lack of progress on what most view as urgent and life- threatening global issues can largely be attributed to the full-force and strategic participation of transnational corporations in the Earth Summit process from start to finish.
Industry learned a lot from the Earth Summit, and the meeting marked a critical turning point for the involvement of corporations in the global debate about environment and sustainable development.
Until the early 1990s, corporate lobbying took place mainly on the national level, and the public in many countries viewed industry as "dirty" and largely to blame for environmental pollution.
Corporate lobby groups saw the Earth Summit as a prominent platform from which to redefine their role, and more importantly, from which to shape the emerging debate on environment and development. At the time, idealistic NGOs imagined the Earth Summit as a vehicle for far-reaching curbs on corporations, but the reality was that business emerged with no binding rules or regulations to hinder their environmentally and socially damaging activities.
The only reference to transnational corporations in Agenda 21, one of the main outcomes from the Summit, was an acknowledgement of the role of industry in sustainable development.
Business Council for Sustainable Development and the ICC
How did this astonishing transformation of the image and role of industry in the quest for sustainable development come about?
In 1990, Swiss industrialist Stephan Schmidheiny created the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) under the influence of his friend Maurice Strong, Secretary-General of the Earth Summit (which was just then beginning its preparatory work). Schmidheiny, whose riches were derived mainly from his Swatch company specializing in watches and
asbestos investments, in turn convinced 48 business leaders from major corporations all over the world to come together to form the BCSD.[1]
These companies, working together with the International Chamber of Commerce (which also latched onto Earth Summit preparations at an early stage), successfully promoted their agenda of 'free markets', new technology and economic growth as essential to promoting sustainable development.
The BCSD was an important financier of the Earth Summit, and individual companies were involved in various projects including "Earth Summit kits" created by Coca-Cola for every elementary school in the English-speaking world, and Volkswagen cars contributed for use by Summit staff and delegates.
Ten Years Down the Road
The official task of the WSSD is to assess progress since the 1992 Earth Summit and to make recommendations for new ways to tackle the ongoing global crises in environment and economic development.
Organisers are frank about the lack of progress since Rio. The preparatory body for Rio+10, the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD), recently stated "many of the global indicators of sustainable development show little improvement or a continuing decline over the past 10 years. ...
Poverty has grown, fresh water and secure food supplies are not availableto all, and the gap between rich and poor has widened."[2]
A series of national, subregional and regional "grassroots" meetings has already begun to discuss strategies for turning "general concepts" of development and environmental protection into "concrete plans for action," according to the chairman of the Summit preparatory body. [3]
Stakeholder dialogues are also being held around the world in another attempt to make the WSSD process inclusive, and consultations will be held with sectors including youth, indigenous people, women and business.
Over 50,000 delegates are expected to participate in the Johannesburg conference. Business is happy with the "multi- stakeholder model" that will be used in the preparatory process for Rio+10. This not only ensures business a seat at the table and provides it with a basic legitimacy, but also offers it "a more positive space to interface with stakeholders including governments".[3]
The decentralised process and the prominent role of stakeholders "leaves the process for agenda-setting at WSSD 2002 in the hands of those [...] that have the highest commitment and capacity to get involved", as a business lobbyist points out.[4]
Business in Action Again
The victors at the last Earth Summit, the ICC and the BCSD (which was reorganised and renamed the World Business Council for Sustainable Development or WBCSD in 1995), had already begun to prepare for Rio+10 in the Autumn of 1999, long before many environmental NGOs.[5]
The WBCSD leadership established a special task force to prepare 'a bold, forward-looking and practical business plan' for Rio+10.[6]
Among the "products" that will be used in the WBCSD's strategy towards Rio+10 are a series of high- profile reports, of which the first - "Sustainability Through the Market" - was released in April.
Throughout the spring and summer, the WBCSD is publishing a series of sponsored sections in the prestigious International Herald Tribune, two full pages each time, titled "The Business Case for Sustainable Development".[7]
The ten ads, preaching the WBCSD gospel of achieving 'sustainable development' through new technology and other voluntary business initiatives, are sponsored by ABB, Shell, Aventis, Tokyo Electric Power Company and a dozen other major transnational corporations.
In the run-up to Rio+10, the WBCSD has also launched five new projects, including "Mining, Metal and Sustainable Development" and "Sustainable Mobility". The projects, which involve many corporations with a record of seriously unsustainable activities, are centered around a series of "stakeholder dialogues" with NGOs and international
institutions.[8]
The US-based Project Underground and many other organizations have already registered their concern. In a statement entitled
"Sustainability means less mining, not more", the groups describe the WBCSD's initiative to create a definition of "sustainable mining" as "a major greenwashing offensive in the effort for [the mining industry] to be part of the sustainable development plans at next year 's Rio+10 conference".[9]
According to Danny Kennedy of Project Underground, these activities "aim to co-opt the very notion of sustainability".
The ICC is a very active participant in the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), the body which monitors the
implementation of the Rio commitments and which is preparing Rio+10. The lobby group sent no less than 80 delegates to the latest CSD's session in April 2001, which included a multi- stakeholder dialogue on energy and transport.[10]
The ICC's PR machine, using its website and newspaper advertisements, is stepping up its (ab)use of the Global Compact between the UN and international business.[11]
The Global Compact, first launched by Kofi Annan in January 2000, is based on an entirely non-binding set of environmental, social and human rights principles. The total absence of monitoring and enforcement mechanisms makes the Compact an ideal greenwash instrument in the run-up to Rio+10.
Seriously concerned about the credibility of the UN, the "Alliance for a Corporate Free UN", a growing coalition of NGOs, calls for a halt to the flawed partnership with corporations and business lobby groups.[12]
Enter Business Action for Sustainable Development
To combine their efforts, the ICC and the WBCSD have recently established a new joint vehicle: Business Action for Sustainable Development (BASD).
Launched at a press conference at the UN in New York in April, the BASD is "aimed at rallying the collective forces of world business in the lead up to next year's Earth summit".[13]
The new body will be lead by Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, the freshly retired chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell, a company that has pushed the frontiers of greenwash further than any other in recent years.[14]
Moody- Stuart is enthusiastic about the new initiative, saying that "the aim is... to ensure that the world business community is assignedits proper place at the Summit and its preparations, and that we areseen to be playing a progressive and constructive role, with abusiness-like emphasis on action and an openness to partnership."[15]
"Put simply, our message going into the Earth Summit in 2002is that business is part of the solution," Moody- Stuartexplains.[16]
The first major meeting of the new body will be held in Paris inOctober.[17]
Many NGOs and citizen's groups around the world are justifiablysceptical about the prominent role that industry is taking in thepreparations for Rio+10.
Regarding the initiators of Business Action for Sustainable Development(BASD), Kenny Bruno of the US- based CorpWatch said, "These are thesame discredited companies that attempted togreenwash themselves at the first Earth Summit in Rio, and havebeen slowing down environmental progress ever since."[18]
What Industry Wants from Rio +10
The mantra continuously repeated by industry is that it hasfundamentally changed during the last few decades and is in the processof solving the world's environmental problems.
The WBCSD's executive director, Bjorn Stigson, insists that it is notcorporations but the consumers who are the problem today.
"We believe that business knows how to tackle the productionissues in the future via concepts like EcoEfficiency", says Stigson."The consumption side is much more difficult."[19]
The European employers' federation UNICE even asserts that industry hasachieved the "dematerialisation of the economy".[20]
Claiming that industry has already done what it should in reducingits environmental impacts, UNICE argues that business has "thereforeearned the right to take a greater share of responsibility for theenvironment - far beyond command and control".[21]
"Command and control" is the standard phrase used by lobby groups like ICC, WBCSD and UNICE to describe "authoritarianinstruments" like binding targets and enforceable social orenvironmental regulations.
Based on their claims of commitment to 'sustainable development',corporations argue that voluntary action and self- regulation byindustry is all that is required to safeguard environmental and socialprogress.
Disturbingly, TNCs and their lobby groups are increasingly successfulin lobbying for business- friendly 'solutions' rather than bindingrules through international environmental negotiations.
Take for example the UN climate negotiations, where corporate lobbyinghas pushed business- friendly pseudo-solutions (voluntary action,global emissions trading, etc.) to the centre stage, corrupting andseriously undermining the potential effectiveness of the KyotoProtocol.[22]
One of the key reasons why corporate lobby groups are investing soheavily in the Rio+10 process is precisely to consolidate governmentsupport for 'free- market environmentalism'. As the WBCSD's BjornStigson asks in a recent speech on Rio+10:
"Will the trend towards the market economy continue and can wemake markets function in a more sustainable way or will we see a returnto more command and control and big government to handle thesustainable development issues?".[23]
The Johannesburg summit will evaluate the implementation of thecommitments made at the Earth Summit ten years ago, but it will alsoassess major new trends impacting the environment and development,including economic globalisation and new technologies like IT andbiotechnology.
A serious assessment would clearly reveal how the unjust andunsustainable global economic system that has emerged is a fundamentalobstacle to solving the global environmental and social crisis. So thenightmare scenario for business is that the ever- growing critique ofcorporate-led globalisation will set the tone for Rio+10.
The backlash, which has given rise to protests against the WTO, the IMFand the World Bank, challenges the logic of leaving crucial issues likeenvironment and social progress to the global market and its corporateplayers. Business is very well aware that, as Stigson puts it, "aninternational questioning is beginning about the role and function ofthe free markets".[24]
"Multi-Stakeholder Dialogues"
It is clear that Rio+10 will be the scene of a clash between the business world and numerous progressive groups from around the worldwho argue that TNCs and their political agenda are accelerating theglobal ecological and social crisis.
Some NGOs, however, may not be so quick to highlight the problematicrole played by industry in the Rio+10 preparations. In fact, some NGOsare de facto assisting corporate attempts to greenwash neoliberalglobalisation. They do this not only by failing to maintain a healthycritical distance to business, but also engaging in models ofcooperation that help TNCs convey the much desired image of responsible'global corporate citizens'.
"Dialogue with civil society" - or rather with parts of it - is centraltocorporate strategies for Rio+10. The WBCSD, for instance, has in thelast five years stepped up its use of "stakeholder dialogues".
The lobby group has organised a series of international meetings withselected NGOs, events that resulted in recommendations suspiciouslyclose to those of the WBCSD. An example is last year's "Global Dialogueon Markets", which concluded that what is needed to pursue sustainabledevelopment is "ways to create markets, where no markets currentlyexist, or to make existing markets operate more effectively".[25]
The WBCSD website does not clarify which NGOs attended these events -and let themselves be used to legitimise the WBCSD discourse - but theyare obviously not the kind of groups involved in challenging the WTOand neoliberal globalisation in general. A good guess is IUCN, WWF andWRI, major environmental NGOs with which the WBCSD has built up goodrelations over the years.[26]
Dialogue between NGOs and business is also promoted by structures likethe UK-based UNED Forum, a "multi- stakeholder NGO ... which haspromoted outcomes from the first Earth Summit in 1992 and is nowworking on preparations for Earth Summit 2002". Both the WBCSD and theICC are actively involved as UNED partners.[27]
It is therefor hardly surprising that UNED receives funding fromNovartis and British Petroleum. Another example of how some NGOs areembracing business in the preparations for Rio+10 is the "EuropeanRio+10 coalition".[28]
In this "tripartite strategic process", the WBCSD is a member,alongside with groups like the International Coalition for DevelopmentAction (ICDA), WWF, the European Movement and European Partners for theEnvironment.
Reality Checks
The partnership model assumes that lobby groups like the WBCSD and theICC are genuinely committed to the environment and social justice, butthis is basically a misconception. Their 'free-market environmentalism'tends to be limited to technological fixes, which include harmfultechnologies like nuclear energy and genetic engineering.
Despite their carefully nurtured green image, in UN negotiations onclimate change, toxic waste and numerous other pressing globalecological problems, the WBCSD and the ICC are systematically lobbyingagainst effective rules to ensure environmental progress.
Their real priorities are to defend the expansion of the business-friendly global trade and investment rules currently inplace and to avoid moves towards effective social and ecologicalregulation of corporations and the global economy. The promotion ofvoluntary action and self-regulation as alternatives, wrapped in anincreasingly sophisticated use of 'sustainable development' discourse,is in fact wholly irresponsible.
Almost a decade after the Rio Earth Summit, it is patently clear thatvoluntary industry initiatives fall far short of what is required toalleviate problems, not to speak of the flaws of corporate self-regulation. One of the most recent examples of this is the complicityof European oil companies, including self- proclaimed environmental andsocial front-runner BP, in serious human rights violations inSudan.[29]
Continued violations of environmental, labour and human rights bytransnational corporations, including numerous members of the WBCSD andICC, underline the fact that business is very much part of the problem.Enforceable international rules to control corporations and empowerlocal communities are a much needed part of the solution.
"Sustainability Through the Market" or How to Profit from the Poor?
The business lobby towards Rio+10 claims that trade and investmentliberalisation will increase economic growth and benefit the world'spoorest people. The reality is that the proposed policies of"integrating the poorest in the global market" in many cases lead tofurther social marginalisation.
Explaining the "Sustainability through the Market" philosophy at aninternational business conference last year, Peter R. White of theWBCSD outlined how business can help by "providing appropriately pricedproducts that meet basic needs".[30] Using a concrete example of howthis could work for his own company, Proctor & Gamble, White explainedthat P&G would "provide individual use portions of products, since manymay not be ableto afford a large volume pack." Rather than reducing the price of theproduct, all P&G would do is to enable the poorest to try out theproduct in a small quantity which they could maybe afford occasionally.Clearly this has nothing to do with poverty alleviation, but revealsthe superficiality and the cynical reality behind the WBCSD's use ofthe term sustainability.
RELEVANT WEB LINKS OFFICIAL Rio +10 Websitehttp://www.earthsummit2002.org
INDUSTRYWorld Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)http://www.wbcsd.org
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) http://www.iccwbo.org
European Partners for the Environment http://www.epe.be
ORGANISATIONS
CorpWatch http://www.corpwatch.org
Friends of the Earth International http://www.foei.org
RELATED ARTICLES
ICC Step-Up Counter Campaign Against Critics of Corporate-LedGlobalisation http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer7/icc.html
Campaign for a Corporate-Free UNhttp://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer7/un.html
UN-Business 'Partnerships'http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer6/ceobs06-09.html
Toothless UN Website on Global Compact with TNCshttp://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer6/ceobs06-10.html
The Global Compact:The UN's New Deal with 'Global Corporate Citizens'http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer5/global.html
UNDP and TNCs:Integrating Two Billion People into the Global Economy?http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer3/general.html#UNDP
The Geneva Business Dialogue: Business, WTO and UN Joining Hands toRegulate the Global Economy?http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer2/gbd.html
United Nations Under Siege http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer1/un.html
Nestlé and the United Nations: Partnership or Penetration?http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer1/nestle.html
World Business Council Sustainable Developmenthttp://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/observer0/wbcsd.html
NOTES 1: For a detailed analysis, see for instance: 'The Earth Power,Politics and World Development', Pratap Chatterjee and Matthias Finger,London: Routledge, 1994. For background on the World Business Councilfor Sustainable Development (WBCSD), see 'Exploiting Sustainability',chapter 16 in 'Europe, Inc. - Regional & Global Restructuring and theRise of Corporate Power', Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), publishedby PlutoPress, January 2000.
2: International Environmental Reporter, Volume 24, Number 10, 9 May2001.
3: 'Felix Dodds, "Rio+10 and Beyond', speech at Euro Environment 2000,Aalborg, October 18, 2000. | Back to Text |
4: Claude Fussler of the World Business Council for SustainableDevelopment in 'What's at Stake at the Summit?', International HeraldTribune April 12 2001; the article was partone of "Business & the Rio Decade", a ten-part series of sponsoredsections published in the International Herald Tribune.
5: 'Felix Dodds, "Rio+10 and Beyond', speech at Euro Environment 2000,Aalborg, October 18, 2000.
6: 'The Road from Rio to Johannesburg', International Herald TribuneApril 12 2001.
7: 'Business & the Rio Decade', a ten-part series of sponsored sectionspublished in the International Herald Tribune. The first four sectionsappeared on April 12, April 26, May 10 and May 24th 2001.
8: 'Mining, Metal and Sustainable Development' is a "two-year projectof participatory analysis seeking to understand how the mining andminerals sector can contribute to the global transition to sustainabledevelopment." See also http://www.iied.org/mmsd/index.html "Sustainable
Mobility" aims to "assess the global impacts of current transportationmodes (land, sea and air) and to develop visions of future mobility."See also http://www.wbcsdmobility.org/
9: "Sustainability means less mining, not more", 'Statement to the UNEnvironment Program Regarding the Mining, Minerals and SustainableDevelopment Initiative',http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/campaigns/mmsdi010 ; 4.html
10: Business will feed environmental expertise to UN",http://www.iccwbo.org/sdchater/news_archives/2001/stakeholder.as p(accessed April 26 2001).
11: On its website, the ICC presents numerous brief stories ofisolated, non-verifiable initiatives, however insignificant andunrepresentative of the companies record, as proof of 'corporatecitizenship':http://www.iccwbo.org/home/menu_global_compact.asp to Davos 2001, theICC sponsored a special four-page section of the International HeraldTribune, on the Global Compact. "The Global Compact - Business and theUN", sponsored section in the International Herald Tribune, January 252001.
12: See also http://www.corpwatch.org/un/
13: 'Business gears up for Earth Summit with launch of new initiative',WBCSD website, http://www.wbcsd.org (accessed May 25 2001). The BASD isnot intended as a new organisation, but will be a vehicle used only inthe run-up to and during the Earth Summit II. It is "simply aninitiative which has the life span of the period leading up to theSecond Earth Summit". 'Business gears up for Earth Summit with launchof new initiative', ICC website,http://www.iccwbo.org/home/news_archives/2001/basd.asp ; (accessed April24th 2001).
14: 'Business gears up for Earth Summit with launch of new initiative',ICC website,http://www.iccwbo.org/home/news_archives/2001/basd.asp ; (accessed April24th 2001). On Shell's greenwash efforts, see for instance thenomination of Shell for the Corporate Watch Earth Day 2000 GreenwashAwardhttp://www.igc.org/trac/climate/gwshell.html
15: Moody-Stuart quoted by Jack Whelan, International Chamber ofCommerce, 'Statement by business and industry to the 10th Session, UNCommission on Sustainable Development', April 30 2001.
16: BASD website, http://www.iccwbo.org/sdcharter/basd/basd.asp
17: The Business Strategy Meeting will take place in Paris October9-10, attended by "business leaders from all over the world". Themeeting "will set the agenda for business and sustainable developmentin the run-up to Johannesburg". "Business Action for SustainableDevelopment (BASD)", International Chamber of Commerce websitehttp://www.iccwbo.org/sdcharter/basd/basd.asp(accessed April 24th 2001).
18: "NGOs Vow to Scrutinize Business Plans for EarthSummit II", Alliance for a Corporate-Free UN press release, April 19th2001, http://www.corpwatch.org/press/un/pr/2001/basd.html
19: Bjorn Stigson, 'Visions, Strategies and Actions towardsSustainable Industries', speech at Euro Environment 2000, Aalborg,October 18, 2000.
20: UNICE's Cynthia Wolsdorf asserts that corporationshave "done their homework" and "learned to set their own priorities andtargets and to monitor their achievement". Cynthia Wolsdorf, "Newpolicy approach towards sustainable industries", speech at EuroEnvironment 2000, Aalborg, October 18, 2000.
21: Ibid.
22: 'Greenhouse Market Mania - UN climate talks corrupted by corporatepseudo-solutions', CEO briefing, November 2000;http://www.xs4all.nl/~ceo/greenhouse/
23: "What we have witnessed lately in Seattle, Bangkok, Melbourne andPrague is underlining this concern." Bjorn Stigson, "Visions,Strategies and Actions towards Sustainable Industries", speech at EuroEnvironment 2000, Aalborg, October 18, 2000.
24: Ibid.
25: The 'Global Dialogue on Markets' took place during Expo2000, July2000 in Hannover, Germany. Peter R. White, "Sustainability Through theMarket: Making Markets Work for Everyone", speech at Euro Environment2000, Aalborg, October 18, 2000.
26: 'World Business Council for Sustainable Development: the Greeningof Business or a Greenwash?', Adil Najam, printed in 'Yearbook ofInternational Co-operation on Environmentand Development 1999/2000', Earthscan, London.
27: See also: http://www.earthsummit2002.org/es/partners/europe.htm
28: The "European Rio+10 coalition" is initiated by the EuropeanMovement and European Partners for the Environment. See alsohttp://www.epe.be/
29: TotalFinaElf, OMV, Lundin and BPare among the TNCs are among the European-based TNCs directly orindirectly involved in oil exploitation in Sudan, thereby fueling thegovernment's displacement campaign and civil war. BP's involvement isindirect, through its co-ownership of PetroChina, one of the main oilextractors in Sudan. "The Regulatory Void - European companyinvolvement in human rights violation's in Sudan's oil fields",Christian Aid briefing, May 2001, http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/0105suda/sudan.htm
30: Peter R. White, 'Sustainability Through the Market: Making MarketsWork for Everyone', speech at Euro Environment 2000, Aalborg, October18, 2000. |
Paulus Potterstraat 20 1071 DA Amsterdam Netherlands tel/fax:+31-20-6127023 e-mail: <ceo@xs4all.nl>
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