Wow! Now here’s a challenge: you are the head of a huge oil company in a world of rising temperatures, falling profits and peak oil, and somehow you have to keep three entirely different and contrary balls in the air at the same time:

1) Your company exists to make profit; if you don’t make a profit then your shareholders will go elsewhere, your company will fail and you will be out of a job, as well as a great deal of once valuable share options – you have to be profitable;

2) The lifeblood of your industry – oil – is running out, not just a bit, but really running out, as demand increases, reserves peter out and new industrial powerful nations try to buy what is left from your rivals – you have to find oil;

3) The climate is changing and you are partly responsible, in fact you and your cohorts in the oil industry are most definitely responsible for a sizeable chunk of both the heating of the Earth and its avoidable destruction; your reputation is getting dirtier by the hour – you need to look green

Tough, isn’t it? The temptation is to say, “Oh, forget it, it’s only money, we can do things another way!” But you won’t because there is no such thing as only money: money is everything, it is what makes you what you are, it defines your place in civilization and no crap about the environment or peak oil is going to stop that!

The great thing is, there is some oil left, but it’s damn hard to get to, and horrifically dirty – easily as dirty as coal. It’s called Oil Sands, or Tar Sands (far more accurate). Uh-oh! We seem to have made a bit of a mess with our initial foray into this venture – we need a nice little euphemism to change the public’s perception…

Difficult Oil.

That sounds nicer – it’s amost as though the public need to help us with our problem; like we need some sympathy with our plight – gosh, this “Difficult Oil” is really important, can we rely on your support to get it out of the ground?

A nice video, that’s the ticket:

Click to open in new window…

[Scene: Shell Man and Journalist driving through Indonesian (?) paddy field in 4 wheel drive]

(The video then goes through a convoluted story of Shell Man and his estranged son (a nice domestic touch) leading to the discovery of bendy pipes to drill oil.)

Nice!

And we all love Shell for making sure we have oil for another generation. What a pity they don’t mention the millions of people and the countless species that will be killed in their insatiable thirst for oil and money; the irreversible global climatic change that will result from their profit greed; the twisted mess of a planet that we will end up with if Shell are allowed to carry on lying to us.

Don’t believe the bullshit: Shell are only doing it for the money!

A little tardy with this one: a reader alerted me to an article on Treehugger back in August, which straight away gained some splendidly cynical comments about greenwashing. The article in question is essentially an advert for a luxury paper by a company called Smockpaper:

Smock Paper is the first company in the US to offer “printing on luxury bamboo paper.” For those of you hosting a party, getting married or just looking for something different to write home to mom on, Smock Paper offers an alternative paper made on fast-growing and pesticide free bamboo. Smock offers a product that harks back to an earlier era when artisans took care, time and attention to detail to make a good product. While the paper is made in a european mill, the paper is printed and pressed in their workshop in Syracuse, NY and this is where the magic happens.

Now, producing a fancy wedding invitation is not quite in the realms of the supernatural, so I would first suggest that the term “magic” is a little excessive; what is even more excessive is the suggestion that this paper is “green”. The little picture above, crafted to “magically” bring out the texture of a bamboo plantation overlain by a map of the world has three red dots: those are the stopping off points for this product which makes its way across the world from bamboo plantation in Thailand, paper mill in Europe (no details of country, except the mill is “500 years old”, because that makes all the difference — see http://smockpaper.com/sustain/bamboo/) and printing press in New York — a trip of at least 14,000 miles!

This is not green.

The response given by the parent company, Boxcar Press, tries to justify the extravagence by talking about various efforts such as envrionmental donations (1% of earnings, wow!) and organic vegetables for staff, but the real give away is this statement:

“The nature of our paper requires us to transport our product around the globe, but we primarily use sea freight (low carbon emissions per pound), and we are doing whatever we can to reduce our energy usage and our carbon emissions from our wind-powered print shop.”

So, you are claiming your product is environmentally friendly, yet because it is “environmentally friendly” you have to transport it around the world, making a complete mockery of your claims!

I think I’ll stick to recycled paper, and not get too excited about having luxury wedding invitations, if that’s all right with you.

My Eco Spam of the week comes from the “non profit” (more of that later) organization, Climate Counts, who have created a scoring system for companies, ostensibly to get them to buck up their ideas…

From: Ria Knapp
To: news@unsuitablog.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 4:04 PM
Subject: News from Climate Counts

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New Widget Simplifies Consumer Action to Fight Global Warming
Climate Counts’ Widget gives Company Scores a permanent home on blogs, profiles, and desktops

November 2008
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Contact: Ria Knapp

With the end of the presidential election season, our votes are now counted. But when it comes to fighting the global climate crisis, the opportunity to cast your ballot as a consumer remains wide open. The debut of Climate Counts new desktop widget enables people to keep their election season energy – by voting with their dollars.

Just as the importance of addressing climate change and achieving energy independence garnered attention during this year’s presidential debates, the Climate Counts team is working to bring the same attention to the role that consumers can play in motivating the biggest companies in the world to offer their own climate responsibility and leadership. The new Climate Counts Widget gives individuals access to how companies rank on climate and how they compare to other companies in their industry sector. Widgets are customized applications that you can download and embed on your computer or web page.

“People vote based on how closely a candidate mirrors their values,” said Climate Counts project director Wood Turner. “People should bring that same sense of purpose to how they spend their money. The companies they support should also be a reflection of their beliefs and concerns about issues like global warming.”

By typing a company name or brand into the Climate Counts widget, you receive an output message with that company’s climate score from 0 to 100 and which Climate Counts scoring tier – stuck, starting, or striding – that company falls into. The higher the score, the greater a company’s commitment to fighting climate change.

“The widget helps people understand quickly how they can fight climate change with the choices they make every day when they shop,” Turner said. “If the widget is on your desktop, your blog or personal page – you have constant and immediate access to Climate Counts company scores.”

Climate Counts is a non-profit collaborative effort to bring consumers and business together to tackle global climate change. The organization launched its first climate scores of companies in June 2007 and updates scores annually. Climate Counts evaluates companies in four key areas – whether they are measuring their climate footprint; whether they are working to reduce that footprint; whether they are supporting (or blocking) progressive climate policy; and if they are being open and transparency about their climate actions with consumers.

In addition to helping consumers make climate-conscious purchases, the ClimateCounts.org website gives consumers the opportunity to “raise their voices” by e-mailing companies directly to either show their support for companies that are striding or petition lower-scoring companies to improve their climate protection efforts.

The widget can be downloaded directly off the ClimateCount.org website at www.climatecounts.org/widget.

For Release: Dec. 2, 2008

Contact Information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ria Knapp
PO Box 4844
Manchester, NH 03108
Phone: 603.216.3788
rknapp@climatecounts.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before looking at the “widget”, I took a look at their website…I must say I wasn’t entirely surprised by what I found, but this was still hypocrisy of the highest order. Here’s my response to Ria:

Dear Ria

This is a joke, yes?

I’ve just looked at the page on Banking (http://www.climatecounts.org/scorecard_sectors.php?id=27) and see that one of the most destructive banks in the world is number 1! Oh, I know why – it’s because the WWF are on your advisory board, and just happen to get lots of money from HSBC! (http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/01/15/wwf-buy-yourself-a-new-corporate-image-part-1/). Where is the Co-operative Bank or Triodos, both of whom have environmental policies that they actually act on rather than pretend to be acting on?

And what about the airlines? Surely NO airline should even be in the yellow, given that their entire business depends on the completely unsustainable and excessive production of greenhouse gases. If they fly then they pollute – that’s it. They can never be good.

And then you have Electronics (http://www.climatecounts.org/scorecard_sectors.php?id=13), the companies scored, including your “greens”, all actively push the mindless consumption of consumer goods that no one needs – but they continue to push them because their raison d’etre is to make a profit, and that means obsolescence and more sales, and more resource consumption, and more toxic pollution, and more greenhouse gases.

I don’t expect you to take this seriously, because you don’t appear to take environmental action seriously. Your funding comes from Stoneyfield Farm, who made $20 million in profit in 2007, raking in 90% of that for their shareholders; shareholders who would say goodbye if they didn’t see a healthy return on their investment. The problem is that profit equals economic growth, equals an increase in environmental damage – how can you be objective when your funding depends upon a company making a profit? (and, BTW, Gary Hirshberg has done a wonderful greenwashing job, pretending that it is possible – hmm, how much oil do his yogurt cartons use in a year; how much carbon dioxide does it take to distribute his products around the world; how much methane do his cows produce?)

When you decide to show companies up for what they really are, then let me know – but for now you are going to become the subject of the next article on The Unsuitablog, which is read by thousands of keen anti-greenwashers.

Regards

Keith Farnish
www.unsuitablog.com
www.theearthblog.org

Intentional hypocrisy or just stupidity? I’m not sure, and I can’t pass judgement until I get a response — which has not arrived after 3 days — but I do know for sure that there are an awful lot of environmentally pathological corporations getting an incredibly easy ride out of the laughably lenient scoring system that Climate counts have in place.

Corporations greenwash enough without others helping them do it: change it or get rid of it.

I could probably do about a million articles like this, given ExxonMobil’s long and nefarious history of throwing money at “educational” projects and hoping some of the contaminated information sticks in the minds of the young people they are trying to brainwash, but this one is related to another article I wrote back in June about the Science Museum in London. Just to see whether anything had changed I looked at the “The Science Of” web site, to find that the exhebition had moved to the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey.

Lo! and Behold! It is still sponsored by the same three awful corporations that were doing their best to brainwash minds in the UK:

I sent a quick note to the press office at LSC:

Dear Dina [Head of Public Relations]

I have just noticed that LSC has started hosting the corporate exhibition “The Science Of Survival”. This is not an objective exercise in encouraging children to be environmentally sustainable, it is a way to allow the sponsors and other corporations who support high technology to make a case for their own “solutions” to the environmental crisis.

I would be grateful if you were to read my article at http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2008/06/03/science-museum-london-letting-corporations-control-young-minds/ which related to the very same exhibition being hosted by the Science Museum in London.

Maybe you could pass it on to whoever was responsible for putting the exhibition on, so they can consider whether it is appropriate to allow corporations to have such a free reign over young, impressionable minds.

Kind regards

Keith Farnish

It was while writing this, and checking out a few other parts of the web site, that I realised there was absolutely no chance of the Liberty Science Center doing anything about their greenwashing exhibitions: they were hosting one called “Energy Quest” sponsored by that bastion of objective and sustainable thinking — ExxonMobil.

Meeting the needs of the future

Energy is one of the greatest concerns facing humanity today. Where will it come from in the future, and what will it do to our planet? Can we balance our ever-growing need for energy with its impact on the environment? Energy Quest – the only exhibition held over from our former building – takes you on an unprecedented journey through the five major sources of Earth’s energy in search of the answers.

Help me with this, please: do you think the exhibition will be saying we need to stop using so much energy, especially the non-renewable kind? It’s a tough one.

And no wonder it’s the only exhibition held over from their former building, one member of their Board of Trustees is Vice-President of ExxonMobil’s research and engineering branch. In fact their Board of Trustees list reads like a roll call of the very people you most definitely would not want to entrust your planet to.

Too bad that there is nowhere for kids to get objective environmental information from: guess we’ll all have to start working things out for ourselves.

Let’s start with some facts:

Cotton uses approximately 25% of the world’s insecticides and more than 10% of the pesticides (including herbicides, insecticides, and defoliants.). (Allan Woodburn)

Approximately 10% of all pesticides sold for use in U. S. agriculture were applied to cotton in 1997, the most recent year for which such data is publicly available. (ACPA)

Fifty-five million pounds of pesticides were sprayed on the 12.8 million acres of conventional cotton grown in the U.S. in 2003 (4.3 pounds/ acre), ranking cotton third behind corn and soybeans in total amount of pesticides sprayed. (USDA)

Over 2.03 billion pounds of synthetic fertilizers were applied to conventional cotton in 2000 (142 pounds/acre), making cotton the fourth most heavily fertilized crop behind corn, winter wheat, and soybeans. (USDA)

The Environmental Protection Agency considers seven of the top 15 pesticides used on cotton in 2000 in the United States as “possible,” “likely,” “probable,” or “known” human carcinogens (acephate, dichloropropene, diuron, fluometuron, pendimethalin, tribufos, and trifluralin). (EPA)

In 1999, a work crew re-entered a cotton field about five hours after it was treated with tribufos and sodium chlorate (re-entry should have been prohibited for 24 hours). Seven workers subsequently sought medical treatment and five have had ongoing health problems. (California DPR)

This information, from the Organic Trade Association in the USA makes it pretty clear why conventional cotton is a bad thing, and why it would be utterly impossible for any company to get away with labelling something containing conventional cotton as “environmentally friendly” or “eco”.

So I was rather taken aback when, on one of my ocassional jaunts to Sainsbury’s — there are a few things I can only get there, and it gives me a chance to switch off all the televisions — I came across a product called Sainsbury’s Little Ones Eco Fragrance Free Wipes. Yes, you did notice the word “Eco” there, which would imply that they must be biodegradable at least, and perhaps made of organic materials, and at the very least fully recyclable.

Yeah, right!

Eco Wipes Audio – Click To Play

If you listen to the audio, you can hear a poor customer services representative trying to justify why they should be labelled “eco”. She doesn’t do a very good job, and how could she? After all, they are not organic, they are not biodegradable and they are not recyclable. Even the ingredients are suspect:

Water, Glycerin, Phenoxyethanol, Panthenol, Sodium Benzoate, Sodium Cocoyl Apple Amino Acids, Potassium Sorbate, Citric Acid, Chamomilla Recutita, Aloe Barbadensis, Tocopheryl Acetate.

She said it wasn’t oil based, but apart from the packaging, three of the ingredients are derived from oil: Glycerin, Phenoxyethanol and Panthenol; which means that the wipes themselves are not even what they claim.

So, Sainsbury’s, if you are reading this — you have been sussed, and I’m never going to trust your labels ever again.

Following my little pop at General Motors yesterday, Phil Colley, an account executive at MSL Communications (take a look at their fabulous client list here) took issue with some things I said, commenting as follows:

I’m with GM and we’re sorry that you, like some in the green community, choose to attack any effort to help the environment – short-term or long-term – that doesn’t come from your pre-existing “approved” list. If you are interested in moving from rhetoric and accusations to questions or genuine dialogue about E85 and longer-term efforts, we are ready. In fact, our discussions with other E85 critics on the blogs have been beneficial for everyone involved, including us.

People are often surprised to learn that since the 1970s, GM has reduced smog-forming emissions from our vehicles by more than 99 percent. Our new vehicles are so clean today that painting a room with one gallon of water-based latex paint will generate more smog-causing emissions than driving a GMC SUV from Toronto to Vancouver and back again. Over the last three decades, the average fuel economy of our car fleet has increased 130 percent and our light truck fleet average has almost doubled. We offer more models that get 30 miles per gallon or better on the highway than any other manufacturer, and 13 of our last 15 new product launches in the U.S. have been cars or crossovers.

You can see my response right after his, but I have no intention of stopping there, because a company like General Motors deserves more than just one article on The Unsuitablog: there are so many dispicable activities to choose from (both past and present) that I only have space here for a few of them.

1. The Global Climate Coalition

The GCC was set up in 1989 as a corporate counter to the emerging strong evidence that carbon dioxide was a major factor in changing the global climate: General Motors was a founder member and major funder to this grandaddy of astroturfs. In fact, the GCC were instrumental in George Bush Jr’s 2001 decision to reject to Kyoto Protocol — GM may have left in 2000, but by that time their work was done, and they decided to get out before their public image took too much of a pasting. This is not ancient history, and General Motors have a very recent history of climate change denial funding…

2. Other Deniers

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, most famous for its “Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution, we call it life” advertisements, is a long-term, powerful AGW denial lobby group, which received funding from General Motors for many years.

Tech Central Station is a global warming denial advocacy group which, with General Motors as a major funder until 2006, was singled out by the US Senate as one group “whose public advocacy has contributed to the small but unfortunately effective climate change denial myth.”

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, of whom General Motors is a key member, have been running adverts pushing against decent fuel economy standards, in order to protect the SUV and light truck market.

This is just a sample of the groups GM has funded.

3. Environmental Lobbying

The US Government demand that lobbyists file quarterly reports of lobbying activity, details of which are available at the Lobbying Disclosure web site. General Motors spend a lot of money on lobbying…here are the details for the last four quarterly reports:

Q3 2008 (http://disclosures.house.gov/ld/pdfform.aspx?id=300102461): $2,700,000 total spend

Bills targeted include: Climate change (S.2191), CAFE (H.R.5560, S.2555), Biogenerics Legislation (S.1695 et al), Railroad Antitrust Enforcement (H.R.1650, S.772), Ban Asbestos etc. Act (H.R.3339) — for other quarters, see individual links.

Q2 2008 (http://disclosures.house.gov/ld/pdfform.aspx?id=300077983): $3,031,000 total spend

Q1 2008 (http://disclosures.house.gov/ld/pdfform.aspx?id=300044651): $4,050,000 total spend

Year End 2007 (http://disclosures.house.gov/ld/pdfform.aspx?id=300023856): $4,040,000 spend per quarter

That’s nearly $14 million just for one year’s lobbying to one government (which doesn’t include the amount spent lobbying the EU, or the amount of funding given to 3rd party lobby and PR firms).

What I really want to know, and maybe you can help me here Phil, is what representations did General Motors actually make to the Senate and the House over the bills listed above — I would love to know. My bet is that it’s not to ensure strict regulations on pollutants, safety or freedom of information, but I’m willing to be proven wrong if someone can send me the documents.

4. Other Items Of Interest

General Motors own Hummer, a company that does not disclose its emissions on its USA web site, but according to the UK government their standard model produces enough carbon dioxide to put it in the very worst emissions band there is. Hummer, for their part, really do seem to be taking caring for the planet seriously:

If you consider “caring” to mean “driving all over it”.

And finally, we have General Motors Global Vice Chairman and US Chairman, Bob Lutz, pronouncing that Global Warming is a “total crock of shit” which is not the kind of thing you really want to be saying if you are serious about the protecting the planet.

Hey, maybe everything GM say about the environment is just greenwash and they don’t give a shit about the planet at all. You decide.

Eco Spam of the week goes to the National Ethanol Vehicles Coalition, as promoted by that true friend of the planet General Motors. Here’s the email, with a few salient points picked out…

Keith,

As your readers make their annual snowbird trek to warmer climates, let them know that their trip could help kick our nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

Snowbirds traveling along the I-65 Biofuels Corridor, the first national, cross-country corridor of E85 ethanol stations, can drive from the shores of Lake Michigan in Indiana all the way to the Gulf Coast in Alabama and be at least a quarter of a tank from an E85 pump. New stations along this stretch of highway have opened over the past year in Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama giving consumers the option to refuel with E85. Flex-fuel vehicle owners can refuel with ethanol to help reduce the nation’s dependence on petroleum and reduce carbon emissions.

Your readers can find stations along their route by visiting the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition’s (NEVC) website -http://www.e85refueling.com/.

If you’re interested in learning more, please let me know. I’d be happy to provide additional information about the I-65 Biofuels Corridor and GM’s efforts to pursue alternative fuel solutions.

Best,

Bethany Ciampa
Mullen for General Motors

Ok, so what do we have here? First is the incredible assumption that “my readers” (who she assumes are all based in the USA of course – as people like this do) like to take annual trips south to their second homes, clocking up thousands of miles in the process and emitting tons of carbon dioxide as they go. In her defence — if there is any — she actually sent it to Green Seniors, which I help run, but still completely ignored the fact that “my readers” aren’t so dumb to be taken in by the oily words of one of the world’s largest (for the time being) corporations.

Second, that E85 — a mix of ethanol and petrol — actually has any environmental benefits. In the first instance, corn based ethanol is very energy inefficient to produce so even though it is plant-based, it is almost always heavily fertilized, processed, blasted with heat to distil it…all of which produce a great deal of greenhouse gas. If that weren’t bad enough, this is a classic case of Business As Usual Ethics making people think that because something is “greener” then they can carry on using it to their hearts content, without thinking of the repercussions of their continued high-consumption way of life: this is what the corporations want, and this is why they greenwash.

Finally, GM itself has as its (thankfully shrinking) core business, huge investment in the kind of trucks and SUVs seen in the photo: by showing an interest in E85 and making their gas-guzzlers able to take this fuel, they can carry on selling them, without having to compromise their abhorrant business in any significant way. The vehicle in the photo does a combined 17MPG!

Here was my response:

Bethany

General Motors, environmentally friendly? Don’t make me laugh!

Remind me at what point GM decided to stop marketing gas-guzzling SUVs and pickups to the general public, and what marvellous strides GM have made to bring the USA’s emissions down by the required 90% by 2030? Sorry, I must have missed that among all your other efforts to screw up the planet.

http://stopgreenwash.org/casestudy_gm

Regards

Keith

P.S. For your greenwashing efforts, you have just booked yourself a spot on The Unsuitablog (www.unsuitablog.com)

I strongly recommend you follow the link, and find out what GM are really all about.

Big companies know they have to look good: that is why Corporate Social Responsibility — one of the most blatant misnomers of all time — was created. Produce a nice thick report saying all the good things you have done in the last financial year, and outlining all of the charitable giving, sustainability projects, improvements to your environmental and social impact and other great things you are planning and you have the means to pull the wool over the eyes of anyone who can’t be bothered to scrape off the surface veneer and look at what you really do as a company.

It is a truism that if a company is included in any of the major global stock indices like the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the FTSE-100 it will be unsustainable: that is, it has to have made a whacking great profit in the previous indexing period and, as such, will have to have made that profit at something else’s expense. If you want to make a profit out of oil, simply extract, refine and transport it at less than the amount someone is prepared to pay you for it — oil may be running out, but while people continue to burn it, and you have the means to produce it, you can still make a profit; if you want to make a profit out of retail, simply produce the goods and retail them at a cost less than you sell the product for — consumer goods may be selling slower, but while people still want to buy crap, and you have a million factory slaves working for you, you can still make a profit.

Basically, if you are a successful company, you will have got there by screwing either people, the planet, or more likely both.

But if you can produce some nice reports saying how responsible you are, you can still get to the top of a list of “Good Companies”, like the one published in The Observer this week.

In order to get into the Top 20, you will have to have been more than three-quarters perfect, according to the scoring system:

The idea is that the index should be helpful to investors who wish to hold shares in or deal with companies that try to make a positive contribution to society and follow good corporate governance practice.

Ethical investment is subjective – different people have different views on what they consider acceptable – and we do not make any judgment about the social usefulness or otherwise of particular industries. Some companies that would normally be excluded by ethical and green investment funds, because they operate in areas such as tobacco or arms, are included.

The maximum possible score is 100, with marks awarded on three main sets of criteria:

1 How companies report on their social and environmental risks and manage their impact – for instance, how they deal with workplace relations and environmental issues, and how well they perform in undertaking charity work. This accounts for 40 per cent of the overall score.

2 The quality of corporate governance. This includes the independence of the board, the quality of executive pay policies and the alignment of interests between executives and shareholders. This accounts for 30 per cent of the total score.

3 Sector issues – how companies address issues specific to their industry. For instance, food retailers are graded on responsible sourcing of products, labelling and sustainability; for a power company, these would include progress towards a lower-carbon portfolio. This accounts for 30 per cent of the total score.

The main source for the assessments is companies’ own reporting.

Surely this kind of system wouldn’t encourage companies to be a little flexible with the truth, would it? Take a look at the list of companies and see whether any of them strike you as rather less than good:

1 Scottish & South’n Energy 93.40
2 Kingfisher 87.05
3 BT Group 86.64
4 Mondi 85.94
5 Royal & Sun Alliance 83.00
6 Shaftesbury 82.82
7 Vodafone 81.50
8 Mouchel 81.27
9 Aviva 80.42
10 Johnson Matthey 79.89
11 Rolls-Royce 79.58
12 GKN 78.41
13 Smith & Nephew 77.28
14 BG Group 77.16
15 Hammerson 77.07
16 Tui Travel 76.89
17 Bhp Billiton 76.82
18 Marks & Spencer 76.61
19 Interserve 76.59
20 Atkins 76.41

You will probably not have heard of all of them, but I bet you have heard of, say Rolls-Royce (who produce engines for civilian and military aircraft), BG Group (whose entire business depends on people burning fossil fuels), Atkins (advisors to road builders, oil companies and the military) and our good friend BHP Billiton, who have pride of place on The Unsuitablog as uber-greenwashers.

Among the other companies are a military helicopter firm, a number of large-scale retail and business property developers, an air travel company and a company that specialise in selling cheap mass-produced goods.

Lists like this are a travesty — they seem to exist solely to pump up the appalling reputations of undeserving businesses who, in a time when the commerce boom is deflating should really be questioning their very existence. Or perhaps it’s people like us who should start learning to reject the very foundations of a society that considers a multi-billion dollar company to be “good”.

Short of cash in this time of economic downturn? Want to be environmentally and socially responsible?

Well, why not forget about buying people lots of crap for Christmas and instead offer to help them out with something they couldn’t do on their own; or perhaps make something yourself; or maybe give them something you have grown; or, perchance, forego the seasonal rush for pointless gifts and just spend a bit of time with your family and friends enjoying each other’s company.

What would Jesus have done?

According to overstock.com, he would probably have bought a Chinese Lacquered Altar Cabinet for $875…

Dear Editor,

Kill two birds with one stone — or rather save them by buying green gifts this season — You can provide your loved ones with unique gifts and at the same time preserve our eco system and give back globally to those in need. Overstock.com offers a lush selection of green and eco-friendly goods.

Choose from a vast selection eco-friendly bamboo home decor gift items, as well as, gifts and handmade jewelry from Worldstock, Overstock.com’s socially responsible division, which supports underprivileged artisans from around the globe– therefore sustaining cultures and helping to end world poverty.

Everyone is counting their pennies this Christmas due to the downward economy, but it doesn’t mean holiday gifting has to be compromised. Overstock has been able to acquire more inventory than usual this season due to brick and mortar woes’ and the overflow from cancellations on their orders.

…

Powerstrip Productions
Public Relations
Contact:
Lea Yannetti: Melissa Miller:
lea@powerstripproductions.com melissa@powerstripproductions.com
(917) 463-3692

Yes, my eco-spam of the week comes courtesy of a company which made $32m in profit during the last financial quarter, and is reaping the rewards of the economic crunch by buying all the stuff that other stores couldn’t sell, at cutdown prices. On the other hand, they are apparently “helping to end world poverty” and helping “preserve our eco system” — which is a bit odd coming from a company which stocks 300 different types of MP3 player; 500 types of digital camera; 300 different televisions, including 30 with a screen size of more than 50 inches; 500 types of laptop; even 200 different snowboards!

Now, I think if you have to buy something, and you cannot get it from somewhere local, then fairly traded goods are the next best option and, to be fair, Overstock do have lots of these kind of items; but “preserving our eco system”? I don’t think so — not when the vast majority of their goods are mass consumer, mass produced, luxury goods of dubious origin. Worse still, if you look closely you find that many of those which are “fairly traded” (not that we should necessarily take their word for it) use materials which are likely to have been unsustainably logged:

Mahogany Wooden Table from China
Rosewood Stand from China
Mahogany Cabinet from China

Here’s my tip: just because a company says they are good, doesn’t mean they are good — especially when they send you emails trying to bang that point home.

What can you say about an advert that fills an entire page of a broadsheet newspaper, containing a title (“The Triangle Of Peace Foundation”), a heavy duty strapline (“The birth of Philanthropical Capitalism, a new global responsibility.”), an address in New York (“Triangle of Peace, 420 Lexington Ave, Suite 518, New York, NY 10170 USA”) and a section of some kind of stylised monolith, all tastefully decked out in black and white?

My instincts say, “What the hell is this?”

I am writing this article completely cold, and I want you to come with me, because everything about this advert says “sinister”; it says “hypocrisy”; it says “cover up”; it says “business as usual”. It says lots of things and none – because you are only meant to wonder. There is no telephone number; there is no web site.

It is aimed at big business, and my bet is that it is the start of a new club in which the remaining “masters of the universe” reposition themselves as the saviours of the human race.

Let’s see if I am right.

Google search: “the triangle of peace foundation” = no hits.

Google search: “triangle of peace” = 59,000 hits.

A quick browse finds www.triangleofpeace.tv and a video which puts the United Arab Emirates in the driving seat:

http://www.triangleofpeace.tv/?bcpid=1827892797&bclid=1825927544&bctid=1840665880

“Peace and stability through trade”. What do you think of that? Trade is ultimately the cause of all anthropogenic global warming, and a leading cause of social hardship (think slavery, sweatshops and urban deprivation). Is this The Triangle Of Peace Foundation?

There is an Invitation to a star-studded Reception Dinner, based at Jumeirah Essex House, New York. Let’s find the address of this hotel…

…it’s at NY 10019, so not far away from the address given above. But this looks too similar to the sense of the print advert, so let’s find out more. Back to the Google search…

Bingo! It is launch day, today, in the UAE, according to Cityscape Intelligence. The article says:

The Triangle of Peace initiative has been launched by a collective led by Sheikh Nahyan bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.

Dhabian Holdings and the World Trade Centers Association and the World Trade Centers Management Company are all behind the $3.2 billion proposal which is hoping to provide a programme which will help build sustainable communities.

More than one million corporations are to be involved in the project when it is officially launched in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on November 10th.

Guy Tozzoli, president of World Trade Centers Association, said: “The Triangle of Peace Initiatives are essentially three programs for building new and restoring and rejuvenating existing cities.”

They offer a higher quality of life as well as a variety of social and economic benefits united by a vision of peace brought about by trade, he added.

On September 23rd the project was officially announced in New York and enrolled in the United Nations’ Global Partnerships programme.

There is so much wrong with this whole concept, I don’t know where to start, but I do know that we have found the source of the advert, and also that the following organisations are involved:

– The government of the United Arab Emirates (an oil-rich dictatorship, dependent on global trade)

– Many, many corporations (which would obviously define trade as being the most important thing…ever)

– The Clinton Global Initiative (members only global projects body)

– World Trade Centers Association (a organization dedicated to expanding world trade, strapline “Peace and Stability Through Trade” – where have we seen that before?!)

– United Nations Global Partnership Program (I can’t find any official reference to this, but as an example of the kinds of bodies enrolled in this Program, take a look at this one, which offers courses in everything you need to f*ck up the planet!)

What is particularly significant, but not surprising given the level of stupidity practiced by many people in the public eye, is the level of support this work is garnering outside of the commercial arena (or at least being shown as support); especially as this does indeed appear to derive simply from one, very small, very rich playground: Dubai. So sad, yet so symptomatic of how dumb civilization can be.

Given that information, I’ve decided to add the rather unsavoury, but accurate subtitle, “Shitting On Us All” to this article.

Ok, so where now? Well, it’s clear that The Triangle Of Peace Foundation is a front for expanding global trade, under the pretence of peace and sustainability, but far more than that, it appears to be both fronting a number of massive development projects to enrich the bank accounts of its members (see this press release to see the level of glee one real estate web site expresses over the idea), and also acting as a focus for many of the worlds richest and most powerful people to make themselves richer and more powerful.

I was right.

Open your eyes.