[A-List] Destructive creation: corporate greenwash

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Anne's forwarding of George Monbiot's article on corporations' use of fake
people to influence debates reminded me of ex-Greenpeace honcho "Lord"
Melchett's defection to Burston-Marsteller. Cockburn and St. Clair provide a
good summary of recent defections of this ilk below. It should also be
remembered that UK private sector intelligence outfit Hakluyt (aka the home
for retired MI6 agents) won some notoriety by operating on behalf of Shell
when "investigating" Greenpeace:

see http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2002w41/msg00051.htm

While Cockburn and St. Clair seem to take the view that Greenpeace
officeholders are more likely to be careerists than principled
environmentalists, it should at the very least be considered that principled
environmentalists can become careerists if offered tasty inducements by
those who can afford it. Finance may be a part of it, but a strong
temptation (and partly an appeal to vanity) is the idea that by working on
the inside you can do more good by speaking directly with the "people who
matter". Meanwhile Greenpeace and other organisations of its kind have
clearly been targeted for some very intensive subversion. That it should
have succumbed in some way to this should not be so surprising, given that
the lack of a Marxist/red foundation is the key weakness of Greens the world
over.

-----

>From Greenpeace to Greenwash

By Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn
Counterpunch, January 10, 2002

Over the past quarter-century, Greenpeace has gone from one of the more
radical environmental groups around to a gateway into the corporate world.
More and more a stint at Greenpeace seems to be prerequisite on the resumé
of top-flight public relations honchos. Greenpeace has already seen former
executive Patrick Moore defect to the timber industry in Canada and Paul
Gilding (former CEO of Greenpeace International) set up a consulting firm
for such corporate villains as DuPont, Monsanto and Placer Dome Mining.

The latest to cash in is Lord Peter Melchett, former head of Greenpeace UK,
who has taken a position with Burson-Marsteller, the notorious US pr firm.
While at Greenpeace, Lord Melchett led the group's high-profile campaign
against genetically-engineered foods, targeting, in particular, the products
of Monsanto, a Burson-Marsteller client.

According to a company press release, Lord Melchett will head a committee
advising companies on how to deal with thorny issues such as GM food, toxic
waste, oil drilling, nuclear power, child labor and sweatshops in the
developing world. Burson-Marsteller executives told the Guardian newspaper
of London that he may also dispense advice on how to B-M clients can counter
environmental protests.

Lord Melchett knows the protest scene from the inside. He's been called the
José Bove of Britain, after he was arrested last year for destroying a plot
of genetically-engineered sugar beets in Norfolk. But the Eton-educacted
Lord Melchett's knows the corporate world even better. Melchett is a member
of the House of Lords, his father headed British Steel and his
great-grandfather founded the ICI chemical empire.

Greenpeace executives in Britain said they saw no conflict of interest in
Lord Melchett's defection to the dark side. "Anyone who knows him will know
that he hasn't changed his agenda at all," said Stephen Tisdale, the
director of Greenpeace UK. "He sees Burson-Marsteller as a conduit to some
very influential companies who would not normally talk to environmentalists.
In some ways, Greenpeace held him back, and he has become more radical after
leaving last year."

That last bit is a stark admission of how thoroughly impotent Greenpeace has
become. For those who have forgotten, Burson-Marsteller is the pr firm of
last resort. They rushed to defend Union Carbide after the company killed
2,000 people and injured thousands more in Bhopal, India. It also ran cover
for Babcock and Wilcox after the company's nuclear reactor suffered a near
meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. They've represented Exxon and
Monsanto, big tobacco, the Argentine junta, Indonesia's Suharto, the Saudi
royal family, and Nicolae Ceausescu, the late Romanian dictator.

Lord Melchett will join some old friends at Burson-Marsteller. Richard
Aylard, the former head of Soil Association (which represents organic
farmers) and Gavin Grant, a former environmental adviser to the Body Shop,
both now work full-time the pr giant. While the others have severed their
ties with environmental group, Lord Melchett remains on the board of
Greenpeace International.

In an email to John Stauber, director of PR Watch, a former Greenpeace
executive lamented that Lord Melchett's defection was a sign of the moribund
condition of the big time environmental movement. "The Lord Melchetts of the
activist (and now corporate) world are only one symptom of a broader
contagion. Is there even a real environmental movement anymore? How
accountable are NGOs to their own base? ... Look how little is being
accomplished in addressing Global Warming in the U.S. at a time when it's
obviously a national security issue and a global security issue. I think
this is in part because the environmental groups don't believe in mass
movement building like they used to. Most of us are treated like consumer
and spectator activists -- expected to pay our membership dues and trust
that full-time salaried activists will solve the issue -- without expecting
to get involved ourselves. How easy it is to confuse salaried NGO actors
with real movement leaders. And when they leave to work for corporations, if
they haven't built a base that can carry on the radical push for change, how
weak the organizations become that they leave behind. But alas, Lord
Melchett hasn't even fully left Greenpeace: Should Greenpeace International
allow an employee of Burson-Marsteller on their board?"

The question might well be reversed. Given Greenpeace's utter corrosion does
it really serve the interests of the corporate spin doctors to recruit from
their ranks anymore? These days picking up a Greenpeace staffer is little
different than hiring away a pr flack from any other corporation.