From corporation-watch at countercorp.org Wed May 20 14:48:49 2009 From: corporation-watch at countercorp.org (Corporation Watch) Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 11:48:49 -0700 Subject: [Corp. Watch] Chronicles of greenwashing: BP just a lot of B.S. Message-ID: <67CAD95A-0089-4CA6-8309-71E004C7F67E@countercorp.org> BP Brings 'Green Era' to a Close By Shanta Barley (BBC, May 11) -- Environmental groups have accused British Petroleum (BP) of dropping its pledge to be green and replacing it with a commitment to be "responsible". The oil giant was widely recognized as the first oil company to both acknowledge and tackle climate change. Its in-house carbon trading scheme -- built with a little help from an unlikely ally, the U.S.- based non-profit organization the Environmental Defense Fund -- was among the first of its kind. However, a change of chief executive has led to an apparent change of policy. In April, new CEO Tony Hayward announced that safety was the company's "number one priority". Some environmental groups saw this as an attempt to move away from "green" as a brand value, which was introduced by Hayward's predecessor, Lord Browne. Greenpeace said the oil giant had a lot to gain by dropping its promise to be green. Charlie Kronick, Greenpeace's senior climate change adviser, suggested that the pledge was the only thing holding it back from making further cuts to its green credentials. "Now that BP is blissfully released from its pledge to invest in clean energy, it has a carte blanche to sell off its unprofitable green energy arm," he told the BBC. "It can get back to doing what it does best: being a 100% fossil fuels train wreck," Kronick added. "This is classic smoke and mirrors." BP denies that it is back-tracking on its commitments to climate change. "The change represents an evolution and expansion of green as a brand value, rather than a replacement," said spokesman David Nicholas. "The new brand value, 'Responsible', encompasses BP's original aspirations towards the environment, in addition to other key areas such as safety and social welfare," he explained. "Our aspirations remain absolutely unchanged: no accidents, no harm to people and no damage to the environment." 'Still committed' Tom Woollard, a director at environmental consultancy ERM, which counts BP as one of its clients, is inclined to agree. "I don't think BP has taken a step backwards on being green," he told the BBC. "The people I know who work at BP are still as committed as ever to upholding green values, despite the change." However, BP's low-key roll-out of the new brand values does mark the end of an era. Lord Browne's re-branding in 2000 promised that the company would move "Beyond Petroleum" by finding cleaner ways to generate energy, and listed "performance-driven, innovative, progressive and green" as its brand attributes. Britain's green energy sector flourished, as Lord Browne's shining for solar power went head-to-head with rival oil giant Shell's investment in wind projects. Both oil titans lavished huge quantities of money on slick green advertising campaigns. But Rita Clifton, chief executive of brand specialists Interbrand, said high-profile promotions could be a double-edged sword. "You can't promise in an advert[isement] what you aren't delivering on a day-to- day basis, and not expect a backlash," she told the BBC. And the backlash was fierce: Campaigners demanded to know what exactly was green about being responsible for a massive oil spill on Alaska's North Slope, investing in the extraction of oil from tar sands (described by campaigners as "global warming's greatest crime"), and spending less than 1.5% of its budget on solar power. BP's environmental credentials suffered a further setback in 2008 when the company announced its intention of withdrawing financial support for a scheme that monitored mangroves next to a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant it was constructing in Papua, New Guinea. "Withdrawal of BP's support for the monitoring process goes against all the green rhetoric that is so prominent in BP's public relations and marketing exercises," campaigners at Tapol, Down to Earth, and a number of other human rights organizations wrote in a letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward. Paul Barber, a Tapol spokesperson, says that BP has also broken its promise to re-inject the carbon dioxide which will escape into the atmosphere from the gas field. "About 12% of the gas field is carbon dioxide, which will now be vented directly into the atmosphere because BP has backtracked on its promise to institute carbon capture and storage at the Tangguh gas field," Barber told BBC. Shifting sands BP's tone changed in 2008 when Tony Hayward, who replaced Lord Browne in 2007, intimated that he was looking to "monetize BP's alternative energy business". And BP recently pulled clean out of Britain's green energy sector, cutting investment in renewable energy by 30%, and cutting its solar power workforce by a quarter. Time for a new look then? And if so, what? BP has rebranded itself as "responsible" in order to regain the trust it lost following the 2005 Texas City explosion, which killed 15 people and injured more than 170 others. The incident was described as "one of the worst industrial accidents in the history of the U.S." by ERM's Tom Woollard. It led to a record fine of more than $21 million by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It also resulted to BP picking up the nickname "Big Problems", and the episode "seriously shook BP's bond of trust with investors", says Rita Clifton. Tony Hayward has worked hard to regain the public's trust by improving the safety of BP's operations. In April, he announced that safety was the firm's "number one priority". "A new brand value is BP's way of saying that safety is now a top priority," Woollard explained. "It's a promise to potential partners that another Texas City is not on the cards". It would be easy to jeer at BP for casting off what many have always considered to be a half-heartedly green mantle. But is it any wonder that BP is reverting to its old habits, given the skepticism with which campaigners greet the green shoots of green thinking in the senior management of oil companies? When confronted with the prospect of sneering green groups, it could well be that any oil company toying with the idea of experimenting with green initiatives -- beyond the near-term interests of their shareholders -- will think twice. And anyway, as Lord Browne outlined in a recent speech at Cardiff University, perhaps saving the world should not be left to the oil companies. If the world could not incentivize green behaviors using good ol' capitalism, Lord Browne noted, it has to be accomplished via legislation, if it can be done at all. From corporation-watch at countercorp.org Fri May 22 04:15:18 2009 From: corporation-watch at countercorp.org (Corporation Watch) Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 01:15:18 -0700 Subject: [Corp. Watch] 4th Annual Anti-Corporate Film Festival Opens May 28 in SF In-Reply-To: <812A4ED5-A1CB-4BCE-91B2-695C5D4B074E@gmail.com> References: <812A4ED5-A1CB-4BCE-91B2-695C5D4B074E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <540CAF43-1CA8-40AB-AB64-4F34CCAB30E2@countercorp.org> ANTI-CORPORATE FILM FEST OPENS WITH OIL, CLOSES WITH WATER Program also looks at corporate influence on our diet, culture, and foreign aid (San Francisco, May 19) -- The 4th Annual Anti-Corporate Film Festival opens on Thursday, May 28, at 7:00pm with the West Coast premiere of SWEET CRUDE (USA, 2009, 92 min), the first feature-length film about Big Oil's devastation of the environment and people of Nigeria's Niger River Delta region, and efforts -- some of them violent -- by local residents to have their grievances addressed. The screening coincides with increased violence by the Nigerian security forces in the area where the film was made, and with the start of a landmark civil trial in a New York court for Shell Oil's role in the torture and killing of Nigerian protesters over than 10 years ago. Director Sandy Cioffi will speak afterward about her experiences making it (including being detained by Nigerian security forces for five days) and recent and ongoing events, and will be joined by Nigerian activist Joel Bisina, who is in the film. The oil theme continues at 9:15pm with the West Coast premiere of BLACK WAVE (Canada, 2008, 99 min), a chronicle of the 20-year legal battle -- the longest in U.S. history -- that toxicologist Riki Ott and the residents of Cordova, Alaska, have waged against the world's most powerful oil company, ExxonMobil, to win compensation for the worst industrial disaster in U.S. history: the Exxon Valdez spill. Director Robert Cornellier will be in attendance for a post-screening Q & A. Friday also includes an opening night reception featuring local organic food, drink, and film clips at the San Francisco Media Archive (www.sfm.org) at 8:00pm. The Festival continues on Friday at 7:00pm with the California premiere of KILLER AT LARGE (USA, 2008, 105 mins), which looks at the epidemic of obesity in the U.S. that could give this generation a shorter lifespan than their parents. The film traces a corporate- driven shift to industrial agriculture, and marketing campaigns that encourage Americans to over-consume cheap, high-calorie processed food. This year's centerpiece film at 9:15pm is the West Coast premiere of RIP: A REMIX MANIFESTO (USA, 2008, 86 min), which explores the idea of "intellectual property" in the Information Age, as digital technology changes the relationship between musicians and audiences. The film follows popular mash-up artist Girl Talk, who creates new music by chopping up and re-assembling other people's songs, and sounds an alarm about corporate control over our collective culture and right to creative expression. Closing night begins at 7:00pm with the West Coast premiere of APOLOGY OF AN ECONOMIC HITMAN (Greece, 2008, 93 min), a film adaptation of John Perkins' controversial book, 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman', which seemed to confirm what critics of international "development" have long suspected: that U.S. and other Western countries use economic "development" institutions such as the World Bank and IMF to trap poor countries in permanent debt and advance corporate interests. Opening with Perkins' public apology for helping to overthrow the populist president of Ecuador, the film documents Washington's ongoing use of this strategy in Panama, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere -- including, most recently, Iraq. The Festival closes on Saturday, May 30, at 9:00pm with the Northern California premiere of BLUE GOLD: WORLD WATER WARS (USA, 2008, 94 min), a look at our dwindling supply of fresh water, and efforts by giant corporations to turn a basic human necessity into a private, for- profit commodity. As water becomes the new oil, competition for control over it is already leading to the first "water wars". Director Sam Bozzo will be in attendance for a post-screening Q & A. "Tipping Man 4", the 2009 Anti-Corporate Film Festival, runs May 28-30 at the Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th Street, in San Francisco's Mission District. For more information -- including the complete Festival program, film trailers, and online tickets, visit www.countercorp.org . # # # CounterCorp: Putting An End to Business as Usual Subscribe to CounterCorp's News and Events e-mail list at http://list.countercorp.org/mailman/listinfo/countercorp-news Get the latest CounterCorp event details on your computer/ iPod: webcal://icalx.com/public/CounterCorp/CounterCorp.ics Subscribe to CounterCorp's "Corporation Watch" e-mail list: For more information, visit http://www.corporationwatch.org Donate to CounterCorp by selecting us on the drop-down menu at https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?id=695 From corporation-watch at countercorp.org Fri May 22 16:04:34 2009 From: corporation-watch at countercorp.org (Corporation Watch) Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 13:04:34 -0700 Subject: [Corp. Watch] Big Oil on trial for its mafia-like behavior References: <642b60700905220738i7c355555o37cfda2c31e5b2e7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4CB95BA7-BEA2-459E-98E5-31697197DB2F@countercorp.org> [Editor's note: This year's CounterCorp Anti-Corporate Film Festival (www.countercorp.org ) opens with two films about oil industry crimes and abuses, including in Nigeria.] Oil Industry Braces for Trial on Rights Abuses By Jad Mouawad (NY Times, May 22) -- Fourteen years after the execution of the Nigerian author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa by Nigeria's former military regime, Royal Dutch Shell will appear before a federal court in New York to answer charges of crimes against humanity in connection with his death. The trial, scheduled to begin on Wednesday, will examine allegations that Shell sought the aid of the former Nigerian regime in silencing Saro-Wiwa, a vociferous critic, in addition to paying soldiers who carried out human rights abuses in the oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta where it operated. Shell strongly denies the charges. But the trial is the latest in a series of cases aimed at some of the world's biggest oil companies, asserting misdeeds in developing countries where they were once seen as unassailable. Oil companies are being sued on charges of environmental damage, collusion with repressive governments and contributing to human rights abuses, among others. Chevron, for example, could face up to $27 billion in liability in Ecuador for pollution of the jungle. Exxon Mobil is being sued by Indonesian villagers from the province of Aceh who allege human rights violations committed by soldiers hired to guard a natural gas plant. And these legal challenges are just the latest tests for an industry increasingly hard pressed to find new sources of petroleum. The most prominent case of supposed company complicity -- the execution of Saro-Wiwa and eight other members of the Ogoni tribe -- led to fierce protests against Shell, which was already under heavy criticism from environmentalists for its record in the Niger Delta. The event, which ignited worldwide condemnation of Nigeria, prompted changes in Shell's approach to community relations in Nigeria and elsewhere. While civilian rule has returned to Nigeria, violence in the Delta has escalated in recent years, fueled by poverty, corruption and graft. In the last week, there has been a new round of fighting between government forces and militant rebel groups, which have declared an "all-out war" in the region and threatened the operations of oil companies. The civil suit was brought by relatives of Saro-Wiwa and other victims of Nigeria's former military regime, who are taking advantage of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that gives foreign victims of human rights abuses a measure of access to American courts. The suit asserts that in the early 1990s, Shell became worried about Saro-Wiwa's campaign to protest the impact of oil production throughout the Niger Delta. The suit asserts that Shell feared his activities would disrupt its operations and tarnish its image abroad, and "sought to eliminate that threat, through a systematic campaign of human rights violations." Shell said the allegations are "false and without merit." In a statement, Stan Mays, a company spokesman, said: "Shell in no way encouraged or advocated any act of violence," and, in fact, "attempted to persuade that government to grant clemency." The case could have global repercussions for the oil industry, said Arvind Ganesan, the head of the business and human rights program at Human Rights Watch. In the last decade, oil companies have been under increasing pressure to comply with strict standards of behavior while operating in countries with poor human rights records and few democratic controls. "The lesson here is that these cases aren't going away," Ganesan said. "If a jury found Shell guilty, this would change the behavior of the industry pretty quickly." The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York law firm specializing in human rights, on behalf of Saro-Wiwa's son and other plaintiffs who fled Nigeria's military regime, and did not trust they could sue Shell in Nigerian courts even after civilian rule returned in 1999. The current suit was brought under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act, an arcane law written in 1789 to fight piracy, which is increasingly being used for lawsuits asserting human rights violations that occurred overseas. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 in 2004 that foreigners could use American courts in limited cases, such as crimes against humanity or torture. While sovereign states cannot be sued, American courts have accepted that a wide variety of actors, including corporations, can be called to account. So far no corporation has been found guilty under the Alien Tort law, though human rights lawyers note that several cases are still moving through the court system. In 2004, Unocal, a California oil company accused of using slave labor in the construction of a pipeline in Burma during the 1990s, agreed to compensate villagers there. The terms of the settlement were not made public. Last year, Chevron was cleared of wrongdoing by a jury after being accused of complicity in the shooting of Nigerian villagers who occupied an offshore oil barge in 1998 to protest its environmental record and hiring practices. Shell's activities in the Niger Delta -- a region of mangroves and swamps roughly the size of Maryland, where most of Nigeria's oil is located -- have long been criticized by environmentalists. Shell drilled the country's first successful well in 1956, and has since dominated Nigeria's oil sector through decades of civil war, military rule, and authoritarian governments. In recent years, protests against government corruption have become more violent. The operations of Shell, in particular, have been come under attack from militant groups seeking a greater share of the country's oil wealth. For Ken Saro-Wiwa's son, who returned to Nigeria from exile in 1999, the trial could provide bittersweet vindication of his father's campaign. "My father always said that one day Shell would be on trial," said Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., who works as an adviser to the government on community issues. "It's important for those involved in the conspiracy against my father to be held to account. It's a communal exorcism, if you like, for Shell to account and bear responsibility for what it did." The elder Saro-Wiwa, who founded the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni Peoples in 1990, was one of the most vocal critics of Shell for the damage done to the Delta communities, including gas flaring and the destruction of mangroves to make way for pipelines. According to the lawsuit, a Shell official identified Saro-Wiwa as being "influential" in organizing the protests and sought the assistance of the Nigerian government to silence him. The company is also accused of paying soldiers who committed human rights abuses and providing them with transportation, including helicopters. During a military raid, one plaintiff, Karalolo Kogbara, was shot by Nigerian troops while she was speaking out against the destruction of crops bulldozed to build a pipeline. "We are not saying that Shell just did business in a bad place," said Jennie Greene, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights. "Shell was an actor here. Shell wasn't just standing by." In 1994, the elder Saro-Wiwa was arrested along with other Ogoni advocates and put on trial before a special military court, on charges that human rights groups and Western governments said were trumped up. Despite international pressure, Shell initially refused to intervene, saying at the time, "The company does not get involved in politics." The lawsuit charges that Shell bribed at least two crucial witnesses to change their testimony during the trial. It also asserts that Shell's manager in Nigeria at the time, Brian Anderson, met with Saro- Wiwa's brother (who is also a plaintiff in the suit) and tried to pressure the jailed activist to abandon his struggle in exchange for help in securing his release. The deal was reportedly refused. Shell's chief executive eventually faxed Gen. Sani Abacha, Nigeria's military ruler, a request for a pardon after Saro-Wiwa's appeal for clemency was denied. But by then it was too late: Saro-Wiwa and the other advocates were hanged on Nov. 10, 1995. Shell denies it sought to silence Saro-Wiwa. "Shell attempted to persuade that government to grant clemency; to our deep regret, that appeal -- and the appeals of many others -- went unheard," Shell said in its statement. "We were shocked and saddened when we heard the news." From corporation-watch at countercorp.org Sat May 23 23:22:17 2009 From: corporation-watch at countercorp.org (Corporation Watch) Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 20:22:17 -0700 Subject: [Corp. Watch] It's the corporate culture, stupid Message-ID: <815789B9-031C-4C9F-A6D4-6E1B74F73917@countercorp.org> Training Managers to Behave By Justin Fox (Time magazine, May 14) -- It's commencement day at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, a highly regarded if off-the-beaten-track business school housed on a former military base (Thunderbird Field) in Glendale, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix. The 279 graduates have gathered on a May afternoon in a convention center next door to the Arizona Cardinals football stadium. After a presentation of the flags of 35 nations and a speech by school president Angel Cabrera, something unusual happens. "As a Thunderbird and a global citizen, I promise ...," Cabrera begins. The graduates repeat after him. Then the recitation continues: ... I will strive to act with honesty and integrity. I will respect the rights and dignity of all people. I will strive to create sustainable prosperity worldwide. I will oppose all forms of corruption and exploitation. And I will take responsibility for my actions. As I hold true to these principles, it is my hope that I may enjoy an honorable reputation and peace of conscience. This is the Thunderbird Oath of Honor, the unlikely leading edge of an assault on business as usual at business schools. It's part of a broader rethinking of the balance between doing well and doing good that could reshape the economy and the workplace in coming years -- or could just stay a debating point. Business schools, Thunderbird president Cabrera and his fellow rebels contend, are ethical wastelands partly to blame for the Wall Street collapse of the past year. And even those who defend B-schools don't claim that they're moral beacons. Debating Cabrera in April at the annual convention of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), Purdue business school Dean Richard Cosier attributed the crisis to "personal greed" and too much debt. "Personal greed reflects personal values," Cosier asserted when I spoke to him on the phone a few days later, "and you can't blame business schools for determining personal value systems." There was a time, in the first half of the 20th century, when business schools did try to instill values and norms. They aimed to establish a profession of management that took its cues from medicine and the law. That effort fizzled by the 1970s, says Rakesh Khurana, a Harvard Business School professor whose 2007 history, 'From Higher Aims to Hired Hands', chronicles the shift. Khurana, a close ally of Cabrera's, argues that business schools have become trade schools focused on securing the highest-paying jobs for their graduates. "If you wonder why CEOs spend so much time thinking about whether their bathrooms are up to par," Khurana says, "look at the business schools they went to." Khurana was a keynote speaker at the April AACSB convention, and he doesn't think his message went over well. "Two hours of making 1,200 people squirm in their seats" is how he describes it. And it's not just business educators who squirm at the idea of management as a profession. When I mentioned it to a lawyer friend, he scoffed, "It doesn't work unless you have a professional exam, a licensing board and exposure to malpractice." Cabrera and Khurana agree. "The biggest question -- and we don't know the answer -- is how are we going to institutionalize this?" Cabrera says. We're a long way from a world where you could lose your management license for taking shortcuts to meet a quarterly-earnings target. But we do have the Thunderbird Oath. Cabrera, a Spaniard with a psychology Ph.D. from Georgia Tech, introduced a similar oath as dean of a business school in Madrid, but it was abandoned after he left in 2004. In hopes of making the concept stick at Thunderbird, he put students in charge of writing the oath and getting faculty and trustee approval. Applicants to Thunderbird must write an essay discussing the oath, and students say it often comes up in class. A few don't love it. One student circulated an essay this Spring declaring his unwillingness to sign or recite the "insulting" and "tacky" oath. Not that it kept him from graduating: Even at Thunderbird, making ethical promises mandatory is still seen as beyond the business-school pale.