Betreff: Greenwashing as "corporate responsibility"
Von: Don Maisch
Datum: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:18:58 +1100


"Corporate responsibility", more accurately termed "Greenwashing" 
(see definition below) is now a major tactic with the Telcos in the
UK (not to mention elsewhere) It has been reported that on page 8 of
this week's Public Services pull-out from UK's Society Guardian that
the UK carrier O2 got an award for its "corporate responsibility
policy". This is for helping employees make time for community
activities eg being councillors, school governors etc AND supporting
charities aimed at young people (such as Childnet International).
They helped set up an internet cafe to "teach communication
technology skills"

Good advice from Mast Sanity campaigner Yasmin Skelt is as follows:

"One way to counter this tactic is that campaigners should now
routinely ask for information on who is employed by the Mobile Phone
Industry on schools, PTAs and councils. Also campaigners, although
under tremendous time pressure, should consider standing for election
as governors, PTAs and councillors to make sure we have a voice and
know what is going on."

Some years ago I received a press release about a new PR
organisation that was set up (abbreviated "WIN") specifically to
counter anti-telcom Internet sites. What we are now seeing with
"Childnet", GreenFacts" and a whole slew of others is the sort of
spin that is called greenwashing. To quote:

Greenwashing
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Greenwashing "Greenwashing is what corporations do when they try to make themselves look more environmentally friendly than they really are." [1] "Greenwash" is defined in the 10th edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as the "disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image." Its inclusion in the dictionary indicates the significance and permanence of a growing trend among corporations to take advantage of the many consumers who look for products with negative environmental impact. [2] "Earthday Resources for Living Green has released this report annually for the last 11 years to call attention to the past year's worst greenwashers, corporations that have made misleading or false claims abut the environmental benefits of their products and industries. "Don't Be Fooled" describes companies' greenwashing attempts as well as the truth behind their misleading claims." Current and past reports are available [online]. The Washington Post has produced a Special Report titled BIG GREEN which as series of investigative articles exposes the corporate infestation of The Nature Conservancy and "documents on the organization's transformation from a grassroots group to a corporate juggernaut." Frequent PR Watch contributor Bob Burton has prepared a 5 page paper titled "Corporations Will Save the World, won't they?" which describes how corporations lure their environmentalist adversaries into the illusion of cooperative engagements such as Community Advisory Panels which result in a win-win result for the corporations by reducing the energy of their adversaries, and turning the media attention away from environmental advocacy against the evil corporation into an image of the corporation attempting to benefit the environment. [3] "Several recent incidents show that, when faced with environmental crises attributable to business interests cozy with the White House, the administration has developed an alternative response: Suppress, Ignore, Preempt." [4] Greenwashing is a form of public relations propaganda which gives something the appearance of being environmentally friendly when it is, in fact, not. An example of this would be an oil company being forced in a court of law to create a habitat for endangered species in its oil fields. Greenwashing would occur when the company creates a magazine ad campaign that is complete with paintings of a beautiful moonlit oil field and nature coexisting, with the image assisted by text explaining how much that company cares for Nature and endangered species, as well as how nature can beautifully coexist with oil wells, factories, or whatever. Another example is naming a piece of legislation "Clear Skies" when the legislation will not result in sky clearing.
From: Don Maisch
First you had EMFacts - now you can have GreenFacts!
This morning I received the below message from "GreenFacts" with a request to exchange links. I recommend having a browse through their site to see another case of a supposedly independent and unbiased internet site supplying information to inform the public about the "Facts".
>From their web site:
A GreenFacts partner is an organization which supports unbiased
science communication in the enviroment and health domains.

GreenFacts is seeking funding partnerships with companies, business
associations, institutions and foundations, as well as other types of
partnerships with academic, communications and media organizations.
However, GreenFacts will not enter into any relationship that may
compromise its independence or impartiality.

GreenFacts is open to developing proper, innovative channels to
communicate scientific information on the Internet and to develop
different audiences (teachers, doctors, journalists, risk
organizations ...). For example, it is presently looking at better
web communications tools and possible applications for its studies in
the classroom. The potential for developing better scientific
communication is enormous and GreenFacts welcomes partnerships with
new ideas.

SNIP

In my opinion this is in the same category as message # 856 (Oct
22): A corporate wolf in sheep's clothing : Childnet International.

Members of GreenFacts include a sizable number of industry
representatives. For example the General manager of GreenFacts,
Jacques de Sellers, is listed on a Greenfacts committee page as
"Industry"! GreenFacts vice president Dr. Jacques de Gerlache is
also listed as "Industry" as a Senior Toxicologist of the SOLVAY
Group.

GreenFacts partners include such responsible organisations as the
European Chemical Industry Council, Euro Chlor and PlasticsEurope .

It must be mentioned that GreenWatch , just as "Childnet
International"does include reputable organisations. If you are in
the PR business of setting up front organisations such as these two
you do need to also attract reputable organisations to give
credibility to the whole operation. AND top it all of with a nice
clean "green" image!

I especially like the statement that "Corporate members can be
involved in the stakeholder pre-review to ensure that the subject
matter in the studies is not in any way biased. They enjoy the same
benefits as other members, but as profit-oriented organizations that
can take financial advantages from the existence of GreenFacts and
its products, a modest membership fee is expected.

I think that says it all.

Perhaps Motorola should join up (perhaps they already have) to make
sure any GreenFacts statements about mobile phones are not biased!

So how does GreenFacts justify the heavy involvement with industry.
Simply with a feel good statement that:

"All members of GreenFacts commit themselves on a purely personal
basis. Their involvement does not constitute an official position of
their other affiliations. Likewise these affiliations have no
influence on the content of GreenFacts publications."

We heard the same old bullshit in the old Standards Australia RF
committee - just before all the industry reps tried to ram ICNIRP
through.

What GreenFacts and Childnet International represent is a coordinated
effort to counter Internet web sites that are seen as providing
information that is at odds with their corporate sponsers.

As I have recommended before, read "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You -
Lies, Damn Lies And The Public Relations Industry" by Stauber and
Rampton.

Don

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 18:46:51 +0100
From: "federica.iaccino@greenfacts.org" <federica.iaccino@greenfacts.org>
    
 >Reply-To: federica.iaccino@greenfacts.org
  
Subject: to the attention of the WebMaster:Links exchange between
    
 >your site and the GreenFacts Power Lines study
Organization: GreenFacts

Object: Links exchange between your site and the GreenFacts
Power Lines study.

Dear Web Master,

GreenFacts is an independent non-profit organization publishing
scientific facts on health and the environment as questions and
answers, in a language that is accessible to the non-specialist. It
has published a faithful summary of the IARC “Summary of Data
Reported and Evaluation of Static and Extremely Low Frequency (ELFs)
electric and magnetic fields”, an international scientific consensus
document, posted at:
<http://www.greenfacts.org/power-lines/index.htm>http://www.greenfacts.org/
power-lines/index.htm
.

We think this information may be directly relevant to your site and
to your readers who seek quality information and would like to
exchange links. We put at your disposal advanced webmaster tools for
such a link on:
<http://www.greenfacts.org/about/webmaster/>http://www.greenfacts.org/about
/webmaster/.
Notably, we provide a “Question-box generator”, which allows you to
create for your site a fully integrated box with the questions from
a GreenFacts study, with direct links to the answers on our website.
See:http://www.greenfacts.org/about/webmaster/question-box/index.php.
As example, you can visit the European Commission website on:
<http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/endocrine/background_links_en.html>http
://europa.eu.int/comm/research/endocrine/background_links_en.html.
If you prefer to set up a standard link we can suggest you the
following link-model: "GreenFacts: the scientific consensus on
<http://www.greenfacts.org/power-lines/index.htm>power lines
presented in a 3-level structure of increasing details".

In exchange, we would be interested in making a link to the
information you propose on the page:
<http://www.emfacts.com/papers/powerline-studies.html>http://www.emfacts.co
m/papers/powerline-studies.html.
Would you be interested in such cross referencing?
If yes, could you send us a short sentence describing your site?

Do not hesitate to contact us should you have any questions or suggestions.


Best regards,

Federica Iaccino
Web Relations Manager

GreenFacts asbl
44, rue des Palais
1030 Brussels, Belgium
Telephone: 32 (0) 2 211 34 89
<http://www.greenfacts.org>www.greenfacts.org