Posted
15th June 2001
Green for going nowhere
To the jaundiced eye it would appear that the 1991 Rio tidal
wave of anger about industrialism's disrespect fYGreenor the
environment has been successfully turned into a two foot wader
by ten years of counter-attack by the corporate PR machine.
Are the same people going to try for a repeat performance at
the Rio+10 summit up until Rio+20. Again the cynic would say
yes, they're aiming for 10 more years of much ado about nothing
with portable greens as scenery. If the global corp executives
knew what the biosphere was, they would probably still say it
can look after itself, and all their rubbish, at least til those
same executives have been kicked off this mortal coil. Needless
to say long ago (as far back as the late 60's when coporations
were being perceived globally as the low-life of global politics)
global corp executives saw the need to boost their image if
they were to continue boosting their profits and still get to
heaven. The Business Council for Sustainable Development lept
into the breach and virtually took over the agenda of the Rio
Summit in the early 90's. Of late in New Zealand a local branch
of the BCSD, Mr Tindall in charge, and a carbon copy with a
darker shade of green, Business for Social Responsibility inspired
and lead by Rodger Spiller. The general gist is that business
will be lobbying strongly for more of the same - voluntary programmes
and self-regulation, and for general agreement with the 'market
model of sustainability'. If self-regulation seems perfectly
reasonable, then its worth asking why is it that in the realms
of trade, that the business lobbyists go for strict regulation-based
governance with enforceable measures (WTO, and most bilateral
trade treaties work on this basis). If its good enough to ensure
good trade outcomes, surely its a good way to ensure good environmental
outcomes. Hypocracy and self-serving did not die after Dickens
scathing exposure of it, it lives on and no modern Dickens can
match its gall. The WBCSD's (World Business Council for Sustainable
Development (sic)) executive director, Bjorn Stigson, insists
that it is not corporations but the consumers who are the problem
today. "We believe that business knows how to tackle the production
issues in the future via concepts like EcoEfficiency", says
Stigson. "The consumption side is much more difficult." While
the genrous, too generous would give some of the WBCSD members
the benefit of the doubt, any fool can see that business in
general has very little interest in dealing with the hard problems
raised by the Rio summit.
For example over the last 10 years we've seen a significant
increase in use of a type of vehicle running less fuel efficient,
weighing heaps more, and having significant impact on air quality.
Is this just because car buyers want them, or because car manufacturers
created a lucrative market, and lobbied (in the US) to avoid
fuel efficiency measures in order to make them popular? Your
call. Then of course we could get into the discussion about
social justice, which Agenda 21 spends a lot of time on. The
start of a critique of trade liberalisation / economic globalisation
is to look at poverty, and wealth distribution, which even conservative
institutions such as the World Bank note have been on the increase
over the same period as increased market liberalisation. 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.
History, 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. 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.
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. 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. 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".
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.
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. The WBCSD leadership established a special task force
to prepare 'a bold, forward-looking and practical business plan'
for Rio+10. 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". 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. 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". 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. 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. 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.
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".
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. Moody-Stuart is enthusiastic about the new initiative,
saying that "the aim isึ to ensure that the world business community
is assigned its proper place at the Summit and its preparations,
and that we are seen to be playing a progressive and constructive
role, with a business-like emphasis on action and an openness
to partnership. "Put simply, our message going into the Earth
Summit in 2002 is that business is part of the solution," Moody-Stuart
explains. Conveniently not stating the formal conclusion to
such a statement, that business is part of the problem, a big
part. Many NGOs and citizen's groups around the world are justifiably
sceptical about the prominent role that industry is taking in
the preparations for Rio+10. Regarding the initiators of Business
Action for Sustainable Development (BASD), Kenny Bruno of the
US- based CorpWatch said, "These are the same discredited companies
that attempted to greenwash themselves at the first Earth Summit
in Rio, and have been slowing down environmental progress ever
since."
What Industry Wants from Rio +10
The
mantra continuously repeated by industry is that it has fundamentally
changed during the last few decades and is in the process of
solving the world's environmental problems. The WBCSD's executive
director, Bjorn Stigson, insists that it is not corporations
but the consumers who are the problem today. "We believe that
business knows how to tackle the production issues in the future
via concepts like EcoEfficiency", says Stigson. "The consumption
side is much more difficult." "Command and control" is the standard
phrase used by lobby groups like ICC, WBCSD and UNICE to describe
"authoritarian instruments" like binding targets and enforceable
social or environmental regulations. Based on their claims of
commitment to 'sustainable development', corporations argue
that voluntary action and self- regulation by industry is all
that is required to safeguard environmental and social progress.
TNCs and their lobby groups are, if that is possible, increasingly
successful in lobbying for business- friendly 'solutions' rather
than binding rules through international environmental negotiations.
Take for example the UN climate negotiations, where corporate
lobbying has pushed business- friendly pseudo-solutions (voluntary
action, global emissions trading, etc.) to the centre stage,
corrupting and seriously undermining the potential effectiveness
of the Kyoto Protocol. One of the key reasons why corporate
lobby groups are investing so heavily in the Rio+10 process
is precisely to consolidate government support for 'free- market
environmentalism'. As the WBCSD's Bjorn Stigson asks in a recent
speech on Rio+10: "Will the trend towards the market economy
continue and can we make markets function in a more sustainable
way or will we see a return to more command and control and
big government to handle the sustainable development issues?".
The Johannesburg summit will evaluate the implementation of
the commitments made at the Earth Summit ten years ago, but
it will also assess major new trends impacting the environment
and development, including economic globalisation and new technologies
like IT and biotechnology. A serious assessment would clearly
reveal how the unjust and unsustainable global economic system
that has emerged is a fundamental obstacle to solving the global
environmental and social crisis. So the nightmare scenario for
business is that the ever-growing critique of corporate- led
globalisation will set the tone for Rio+10. The backlash, which
has given rise to protests against the WTO, the IMF and the
World Bank, challenges the logic of leaving crucial issues like
environment and social progress to the global market and its
corporate players. Business is very well aware that, as Stigson
puts it, "an international questioning is beginning about the
role and function of the free markets".
"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 world who argue that TNCs and their political agenda are
accelerating the global ecological and social crisis. Some NGOs,
however, may not be so quick to highlight the problematic role
played by industry in the Rio+10 preparations. In fact, some
NGOs are de facto assisting corporate attempts to greenwash
neoliberal globalisation. They do this not only by failing to
maintain a healthy critical distance to business, but also engaging
in models of cooperation that help TNCs convey the much desired
image of responsible 'global corporate citizens'. "Dialogue
with civil society" - or rather with parts of it - is central
to corporate strategies for Rio+10. The WBCSD, for instance,
has in the last five years stepped up its use of "stakeholder
dialogues". The lobby group has organised a series of international
meetings with selected NGOs, events that resulted in recommendations
suspiciously close to those of the WBCSD. An example is last
year's "Global Dialogue on Markets", which concluded that what
is needed to pursue sustainable development is "ways to create
markets, where no markets currently exist, or to make existing
markets operate more effectively". The WBCSD website does not
clarify which NGOs attended these events - and let themselves
be used to legitimise the WBCSD discourse - but they are obviously
not the kind of groups involved in challenging the WTO and neoliberal
globalisation in general. A good guess is IUCN, WWF and WRI,
major environmental NGOs with which the WBCSD has built up good
relations over the years. Dialogue between NGOs and business
is also promoted by structures like the UK-based UNED Forum,
a "multi- stakeholder NGO ึ which has promoted outcomes from
the first Earth Summit in 1992 and is now working on preparations
for Earth Summit 2002". Both the WBCSD and the ICC are actively
involved as UNED partners. It is therefor hardly surprising
that UNED receives funding from Novartis and British Petroleum.
Another example of how some NGOs are embracing business in the
preparations for Rio+10 is the "European Rio+10 coalition".
In this "tripartite strategic process", the WBCSD is a member,
alongside with groups like the International Coalition for Development
Action (ICDA), WWF, the European Movement and European Partners
for the Environment.
Reality Checks
The
partnership model assumes that lobby groups like the WBCSD and
the ICC are genuinely committed to the environment and social
justice, but this is basically a misconception. Their 'free-market
environmentalism' tends to be limited to technological fixes,
which include harmful technologies like nuclear energy and genetic
engineering. Despite their carefully nurtured green image, in
UN negotiations on climate change, toxic waste and numerous
other pressing global ecological problems, the WBCSD and the
ICC are systematically lobbying against effective rules to ensure
environmental progress. Their real priorities are to defend
the expansion of the business-friendly global trade and investment
rules currently in place and to avoid moves towards effective
social and ecological regulation of corporations and the global
economy. The promotion of voluntary action and self-regulation
as alternatives, wrapped in an increasingly sophisticated use
of 'sustainable development' discourse, is in fact wholly irresponsible.
Almost a decade after the Rio Earth Summit, it is patently clear
that voluntary industry initiatives fall far short of what is
required to alleviate problems, not to speak of the flaws of
corporate self-regulation. One of the most recent examples of
this is the complicity of European oil companies, including
self- proclaimed environmental and social front-runner BP, in
serious human rights violations in Sudan. Continued violations
of environmental, labour and human rights by transnational corporations,
including numerous members of the WBCSD and ICC, underline the
fact that business is very much part of the problem. Enforceable
international rules to control corporations and empower local
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 investment
liberalisation will increase economic growth and benefit the
world's poorest people. The reality is that the proposed policies
of "integrating the poorest in the global market" in many cases
lead to further social marginalisation. Explaining the "Sustainability
through the Market" philosophy at an international business
conference last year, Peter R. White of the WBCSD outlined how
business can help by "providing appropriately priced products
that meet basic needs". Using a concrete example of how this
could work for his own company, Proctor & Gamble, White explained
that P&G would "provide individual use portions of products,
since many may not be able to afford a large volume pack." Rather
than reducing the price of the product, all P&G would do is
to enable the poorest to try out the product in a small quantity
which they could maybe afford occasionally. Clearly this has
nothing to do with poverty alleviation, but reveals the superficiality
and the cynical reality behind the WBCSD's use of the term sustainability.
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