Sleeping with the Enemy
BBC Wildlife Magazine, August 2001
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."
Andy Rowell
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