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Andy Rowell, August 2001
Article originally appeared in BBC Wildlife Magazine and can be accessed at Andy Rowell's Website
Sleeping with the Enemy
At the height of the foot-and-mouth outbreak, the environment minister
Michael Meacher took some time out to make the keynote speech at a
conference on business and sustainability. "Engagement, transparency and
accountability," are the way forward, he told the conference. Attending
were top UK companies, such as BNFL, BP Amoco, BT, Proctor & Gamble and
Shell, along with representatives from English Nature, Friends of the
Earth, Greenpeace, the RSPB and WWF.
The conference was the latest manifestation of a trend over the past
five years for increasing co-operation and dialogue between
environmental organisations and business.
Some argue that this new era of consensus building offers a 'win-win'
scenario, in which co-operation between NGOs and business works for the
common good. Others remain sceptical as to how far the environmental
movement should be jumping into bed with the business community.
How this struggle between the radicals and pragmatists is resolved will
shape the future of environmental campaigning for a generation. This
debate is also occurring in the wider context of a growing worldwide
movement against trade liberalisation and increasing corporate power.
Mainstream environmental groups find themselves caught between those who
believe the future of the movement lies with working with industry and
those who contend that the institutions of corporate power, such as the
World Trade Organisation (WTO), must be dismantled. Whether a group
should take money from a company is a hotly debated topic.
While some groups, such as the Wildlife Trusts and WWF, take corporate
finance, others such as Greenpeace do not. Those that take the cash
argue that they could not afford to do without it. Their detractors say
that it could compromise an NGO's image if it was felt that the money
was more important than the message.
This debate over finance not only occurs between groups, but also within
them. For example, the debate within WWF is not just how close it should
be to business, but how much of a 'business' it should be itself, with
fundraising departments increasingly marketing WWF as a brand for
companies to use to promote their products.
"Our panda logo is one of the most enduring and recognised brands in the
world. It's also one of the most attractive," says one WWF advert placed
to attract funding. "You will be surprised how many people will choose a
product or service bearing our logo in preference to a rival."
The second hotly debated topic is whether the dialogue between NGOs and
business is really just a tactic employed by industries to outwit their
critics and 'greenwash' their image. Certainly, PR executives tell
corporate clients that dialogue is one way to counter activists, but the
Environment Council, which has pioneered "stakeholder dialogue" forums
between controversial companies, such as Shell and Monsanto, and the NGO
community, sees it as the future.
Some believe this new trend is inevitable. "That NGOs will have to
interact with companies is not in doubt; how they will interact is the
question," says Simon Heap of Intrac, the International NGO Training and
Research Centre. Even Greenpeace, seen as the more radical of the
mainstream groups, sees a role for dialogue in certain aspects. "Our
message to industry is this: we don't want dialogue with you to find
compromises - but if you have solutions that will really transform
markets for the better, we want to work with you."
Some groups have been struggling with this dilemma. There is
currently a debate within the Australian Conservation Foundation over
its links to mining monolith BHP, which has been criticised for its
environmentally damaging operations, especially at the Ok Tedi Mine in
Papua New Guinea.
Worried about increasing dialogue between the conservation group and
BHP, the ACF's ruling council recently passed resolutions on corporate
engagement, which considered ways of increasing the transparency of
decision-making with respect to the BHP relationship, the relationship's
impact on its status in the community and the possible risks to ACF's
campaign goals.
Many now see the convergence of business and environmentalists going
beyond finance and dialogue and into concrete partnerships.
Environmental adviser Chris Baines describes this as "sensible and
pragmatic," adding: "Organisations that are dipping their toe in the
water of unholy alliances and uncomfortable co-operation need to be
applauded and encouraged."
Baines's philosophy is shared by Simon Lyster, director general of the
Wildlife Trusts. "We probably have closer ties with business than any
other environmental organisation," he says. "Greening business is
crucial because it is so important to the way we live. Simply to walk
away from business because it makes money is not a very sensible thing
to do."
But the move towards greater co-operation between NGOs and business is
not without its critics. "Environmental groups should not take money off
companies and should not allow themselves to be used as an extension of
the corporate, public-relations effort," argues writer and campaigner
George Monbiot. "The dangers are that by co-operating with the
corporations on their terms, environmentalists help to justify the
company's more devious practices."
WWF, for instance, has been accused of helping to improve
the image of an ecologically damaging project in Papua New Guinea. It
joined forces with Chevron, when the oil company struck oil there in the
early 1990s, on the grounds that it could achieve more to mitigate the
impact of oil development that way than by walking away. Whatever WWF's
intentions, however, leaked documents from Chevron revealed the company
hoped WWF would act as a "buffer" against both "environmentally damaging
activities in the region and against international environmental
criticism." WWF's main project in the country has been eco-forestry,
working with local landowners to stop industrial logging following the
oil strike.
This, too, ran into problems when a WWF report showed that the project
was actually sourcing logs from mangroves, which is illegal under PNG
law. While WWF contests the details of the case, there is no doubt that
its reputation has suffered through the adverse publicity. WWF has also
been a pioneer of market-based environmental solutions, and once
again there is an ongoing debate about how successful these have been.
In 1993 WWF was instrumental in setting up the Forestry Stewardship
Council (FSC), an independent timber-certification scheme that allows
consumers to buy wood which has been grown in a sustainable and
environmentally friendly way. "We are not saying that it is the long-
term answer to everything," says Phil Aikman, of Greenpeace
International. "But where it is currently being implemented, it has a
huge role to play. If there is a weakness, it is not necessarily down to
the FSC, but down to the certifiers, because they are not following the
regulations. If we thought that forests were being destroyed by the FSC,
we would have walked away."
To date, more than 22 million hectares of forest have been certified by
FSC-accredited certification bodies in 40 countries.Now, as a result of
its success, the demand for FSC-accredited timber is outstripping
supply, leading to accusations of watering down of regulations.
In February 2000, it was criticised for relaxing some of the
specifications for timber-based products, following pressure from
European participants.
"Because there has been so little rigour in upholding the FSC's
principles and criteria, the FSC doesn't actually now provide a
guarantee to consumers that the timber carrying its logo is from an
environmentally and socially acceptable source," argues Simon Counsell,
the director of the Rainforest Foundation, which was a founder member of
the FSC. "Environmental groups, including WWF, are supporting a system
that is misleading consumers."
WWF and Unilever, one of the world's largest fish buyers, set up a
marine version of the FSC called the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) in
1997. The MSC, which become independent in 1999, uses market incentives
to influence the way fisheries are managed. It, too, ran into
controversy earlier this year, when it was announced that one of the
largest white-fish fisheries in New Zealand, the hoki fishery, was to
receive certification.
Critics say that it causes thousands of seal and bird deaths every
year. "The announcement that the hoki fishery is to be certified is a
serious blow to the integrity of the MSC," argues Cath Wallace, from
ECO, a coalition of environmental groups.
Brendan May, the MSC's chief executive responds by saying that, without
the MSC process, "there would be no benchmarks for the hoki fishery to
take forward and resolve."The problems the FSC and MSC have encountered
raise the issue of what is the best way to achieve environmental change:
working with industry on market-based solutions or taking the more
confrontational approach. But there is a consensus, however, that a
broad church of groups is beneficial.
Dialogue, argues Professor Brian Wynne, from the Centre for the Study of
Environmental Change at Lancaster University, "is a necessary and
justifiable part of a multi-pronged approach which, cannot be isolated
from direct action."
Chris Baines, who has worked with many controversial industries, such as
road- and house-builders and oil companies, agrees. "I couldn't do what
I do in the pragmatic middle ground, if there wasn't an extreme fringe
in both directions," he argues. "If there weren't reactionary dinosaurs
in industry, then the pragmatists in industry wouldn't be driven."
Similarly, he believes that he is seen by industry as the "face of
reason," compared to the more radical groups. But within this broad
spectrum, there is still a struggle for overall direction.
Ironically, the arrival of the Bush administration in the US
has reversed a decade of movement towards the middle ground by the
environmental community there. Forced onto the back foot and trying to
salvage the Kyoto agreement on climate change and head off oil drilling
in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the environmental movement has
radicalised.
Some argue that, in Europe, there is a need for a more radical approach
towards localised solutions to ecological problems, in which big
business may not feature at all and in which fundamental political
change is needed too. "The days for hoping that good souls within
multinationals will be able to change behaviour and that the protection
of the environment will be adequate have now passed," argues Green Party
adviser Colin Hines, author of Localisation: A global manifesto. "There
is a different consensus building, namely calling for the protection and
rebuilding of local economies. It is now crucial that globalisation's
critics build on this and move from opposition to constructive
alternatives."
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