A few days ago I was watching the TV trying to see which companies were plying their seasonal wares to small children. It was the usual plastic crap which I don’t need to explain in detail, but one thing caught my eye: the Playmobile Recycling Truck, with an awful voice over saying, “Do your bit for the environment” to which I mentally appended, “by purchasing this chunk of unrecycled plastic.” Browsing this morning for similar products — and to give Playmobile their due, they don’t actually say anything more on their web site except that its a Recycling Truck toy — and I inevitably came across the Fisher Price range of toys.

Fisher Price are big, and getting bigger. Part of the behemoth toy corporation, Mattel since 1993, they are now worth over $2 billion, over a third of Mattel’s earnings. Not surprisingly they have a huge range of products, but two of them struck me as being particularly interesting: the Rainforest Range and the Precious Planet range. In the UK, these are given top billing on the “Baby Gear” page, as you can see here.

It’s a bit difficult to get too stroppy about the Rainforest range, even though they say in their Infant section:

Bring the natural beauty of a rainforest to your baby’s nursery … with lush greenery, playful animal friends, serene backgrounds, even calming motion and sounds. The Fisher-Price Rainforest toys and accessories line: designed to soothe and entertain your very special baby in very special ways.

They don’t make any claims about preservation, and it’s not as though rainforest means anything special when it comes to toys except monkeys and trees.

On the other hand, Precious Planet is altogether more pointed: if you saw a range of toys called “Precious Planet”, what would you think? Three cute animals smiling at the shopper, with a bird appearing to walk across a blue and green globe, partially masked by the bubbly blue writing. You can’t honestly say that Fisher Price are not trying to make some Eco-point here, can you?

So I called the UK office up, ready to ask questions about the chemicals in the toys, where they are made and whether they contained any renewable or recycled materials. What I didn’t expect was what I was told at 4′ 44″…

Fisher Price UK Recording – Precious Planet

Sorry about the bad quality, but you can clearly hear the words: “but it’s not environmentally friendly”

So why the hell is it called Precious Planet?! As I said in the call, there is no information, just the heavily suggestive range name along with an equally suggestive graphic: people are going to believe the products are environmentally friendly, when they may just be the least environmentally and socially (Mattel have a terrible record on sweatshop labour) ethical products you can buy for your child.

Actually, there is a link, which has grabbed Fisher Price by the balls, and isn’t going to let go. At the bottom of the page is the logo of the Wildlife Conservation Society. It only appears at the bottom of the Precious Planet pages for both Baby and Infant, so they are clearly trying to greenwash the public about their environmental credentials, by virtue of presentation: just because it doesn’t explicitly claim to be ethical doesn’t mean it isn’t saying so.

Go to the WCS web site, and you find that Fisher Price are one of their key corporate sponsors, and have their logo all over the place should you happen to visit the Bronz Zoo Animal Prison. What is particularly interesting is the company that Fisher Price keep in this roll-call of elite greenwashers:

ConEdison — Energy supplier to New York City, using oil, coal and gas
Bank Of America — Financial giant who will invest in just about anything that makes money
Delta Airlines — Yes, an airline, how very sustainable
Hess — A major oil company working everywhere, including Borneo
PepsiCo — Junk food behemoth, getting their logo everywhere they can

Quite where that leaves the reputation of the Wildlife Conservation Society depends on whether you think wildlife conservation mixes happily with coal, oil, airlines, global finance and junk food. I would say it’s in tatters, which is pretty well the state of Fisher Price’s greenwashing reputation as well. They deserve each other.

No surprises; no surprises at all. As the world’s “leaders” gear up to converge on the vapourware that is the COP-15 Copenhagen Climate Summit, their objectives seem to be diverging: different governments are being seen as wanting different things, with the less-industrialised nations pointing the finger at (giving the finger to?) the industrial world, essentially saying, “You made the mess, you clean it up!” Among the industrial nations, Canada has no intention of even pretending to do anything, Europe is wading around in a greenwashing miasma of its own making, and the USA doesn’t quite know what to do. The Independent, on Friday 6 November, put the situation like this:

British Government officials believe there is no hope of signing a legally binding climate change treaty in Copenhagen next month.

The positions of major world powers are so far apart that another year or even more may be needed to negotiate a world climate treaty, senior British sources said at talks in Barcelona, which end today.

Writing today for The Independent the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, also admits that a deal in Copenhagen is now unlikely. “The barriers to agreement on climate finance remain substantial,” he writes. “Even if countries agree the levels of finance, few will want to hand over money if they lack confidence in the means of delivering it.”

The development has disconcerted observers at Barcelona, where it has become clear over the course of this week’s talks that countries are still so far apart on how to act on climate change – with the American position the farthest from everyone else – that the most that Copenhagen can now produce is a “political” agreement on climate change, which would not be legally binding like the current climate treaty, the Kyoto protocol.

But yesterday’s frank admission, for the first time, that it might take another year or even longer to produce a proper treaty, after 10,000 officials from 192 countries have already spent two years working to a Copenhagen deadline, showed just how bogged down the negotiating process has become.

Although there are various stumbling blocks, there is no doubt that the continued lack of a serious American offer on cutting its greenhouse gas emissions and providing climate finance for the developing nations – the bill which might provide them is stuck in the US Senate – is the principle obstacle to progress. “Copenhagen is one of the most important meetings in human history. But the politicians seem determined to blow it,” said Joss Garman, climate campaigner for Greenpeace.

Leaving aside the Greenpeace comment for the moment, you would think that even the industrial nations are oceans apart; yet anyone who has an awareness of how Industrial Civilization operates will be looking at this and simply thinking, “Business as usual.” And so we should, because neither Copenhagen, nor its successor Mexico City are the slightest bit relevant in the real battle against climate change. This battle, when it is played out, will be a silent, local, underground battle against the forces that comprise every government engaged in the so-called “negotiation” process. What the governments of the world are negotiating is simply the continuation of the industrial machine in the face of global environmental change, but almost no public opposition.

We are so brainwashed into thinking that the system has it right, that it comes as no surprise to hear people like Joss Garman referring to Copenhagen as, “one of the most important meetings in human history”, as though anything that will have any impact on climate change was ever expected to come out of it. We pin our hopes on summits in this way because we have grown up to accept the false authority of “our leaders”, and to deny that we can do anything significant ourselves. As I wrote in “Time’s Up!“:

The system has legitimized all its efforts to prevent change and suppress opposition because the vast majority of people who are subjected to its activities are fully paid-up members of Industrial Civilization. It is ‘right’ that civilization maintains its stability because without stability, civilization collapses and can no longer impose its will upon the population. Does that sound like a coherent argument to you? In all truth, that really is the best argument civilization has for its continued existence: it has to be maintained because it has to be maintained. Even a heroin addict, shooting up to get the fix that he agonizingly craves, knows that his habit will eventually kill him. Even a lifelong nicotine addict will admit that smoking is bad for her and she should stop. Hands up if you think Industrial Civilization should be stopped.

Every environmental organisation, every lone campaigner, every ordinary member of the public that will be holding their breath as the laughably-titled “negotiations” wrap up, is in denial of the reality that we are doomed so long as Industrial Civilization continues to dominate the globe. Copenhagen is just one more pebble in that river of denial.

Something like 10 years ago I joined an organisation which I thought would be able to make a real difference; the Woodland Trust had been, and certainly for a considerable time after I joined, have been true stalwarts in the essential job of protecting, managing and replanting the native woodland of the UK. Their work on climate related phenology has been second to none; they have been responsible for bringing doomed woodlands back from the brink of destruction, and have re-established woodlands where once they had been. They have involved thousands of children in educational and practical work…the list goes on.

Then, a couple of years ago, they started ramping up the process of attracting corporate sponsors. It’s not as though money was particularly tight – between 2001 and 2006 their total income steadily rose from just under £16 million to nearly £22 million, with no sign of any financial worries; but for whatever reason, perhaps because certain trustees deemed it “the right thing to do”, they started attempting to attract corporate funding in earnest.

Back in 2001, company donations accounted for a mere £96,000, and that went down in 2002. In 2004 it was still only £140,000. After that they stopped publishing the company donations total in their accounts, but as of 2008, the combined total of company donations and the larger landfill tax and charitable trusts was £2.3 million. Of this, company donations probably still only accounted for less than a quarter of this out of a total income of nearly £30 million. Legacies and member donations, on the other hand, accounted for well over 40% of their income, compared to the probable 2% that was given in company sponsorship.

So why then, does the Woodland Trust make such relationships? Could it have anything to do with the fact that one of their trustees is the former Chief Executive of the biofuel company D1? Possibly, though maybe that trustee appointment is more to do with the general direction the Woodland Trust was already taking. Corporate sponsorship seems to be an addiction in the cut-and-thrust world of charitable fundraising, and like WWF, it doesn’t take long before your image is thoroughly tarred. At the time of writing, the Woodland Trust has corporate partnerships with companies as grossly inappropriate as BP, Ikea, Sainsburys, Ronseal (Thompson), Tesco and Hilton Hotels : all companies that have a hugely negative impact on the natural environment. You can read the full list of donors in their annual reviews, but to save you the time, here are some other choice cuts from their 2008 review:

ALD Automotive
BMW
British Land
Calor
Georgia Pacific
Honda UK

Oh, and Disney. This is no casual partnership, though: it warrants an entire page of their Autumn 2009 magazine — the one I just got through the post — plus a major news release earlier in the year. It will come as no surprise that Disney has featured on The Unsuitablog before; here’s a taster of the article:

There were all sorts of alternative images I could have put at the top of this article: sweatshop workers sewing together Disney branded clothes or assembling Disney branded toys and other consumer goods; container ships full of Disney goods, crossing the oceans with wares destined for every nation touched by the rank hand of industrialisation; airports full of people waiting for their departure to one of the Disney resorts dotted around the world, or aircraft in the air pumping out greenhouse gases directly created by the desire to travel to a Disney resort; landfill sites full of Disney goods, slowly leaching their toxins into the ground; queues of gas-guzzling traffic and hyper parking lots outside shopping malls replete with Disney Stores full of toxic, climate changing, sweatshop produced consumer items; children goggle-eyed before the latest saccharine-sweet, consumer-friendly, merchandise-linked version of the world brought to you by your friendly corporation; fast food stores full of obese families drawn towards the counters by the offer of Disney toys with every Happy Meal; a globe full of brainwashed humans, on their knees, praying in the direction of a Magic Castle, that sits at the centre of a vast concrete, brick, chrome and plastic complex that used to be a swath of pristine, wildlife-rich Everglade.

Not the sort of company that really sits comfortably with the idea of protecting ancient woodlands, educating children about the importance of a healthy ecosystem and warning about the dangers of climate change. Yet in the magazine article we see the following:

“Disney Store is the first big company to help turn our dream of making a vast new forest close to where people live into a reality,” says Sue Holden, the Trust’s chief executive. “By working closely with them [Disney], we aim to inspire thousands of children to look after the environment, as well as creating a fantastic woodland that will excite generations to come.”

Hundreds of children from schools within a 15-mile radius of Heartwood Forest have already attended curriculum linked woodland discovery days during which they looked at flowers indicative of ancient woodland, drew pictures and wrote poems…also popular was a brief appearance by Mickey Mouse as part of the Disney launch.

Disney have a long and tarnished record of making partnerships with organisations to gain influence over the education and other activities of children, and they have plenty of their own irons in the fire: they already owned Hyperion Books for Children, ClubPenguin and an “education” company called Disney Educational Products among many others, and only last year did they buy RaisingKids.co.uk, an online parenting forum!

In the case of the Woodland Trust, how much do you reckon it cost Disney for all this exposure to young minds?

Nothing. All the money for the £100,000 donation came from selling something to their customers they otherwise would not have bought.

As for me: well, I’m resigning from the Woodland Trust. I’ve had enough of this hypocrisy.

I admit to being a bit behind the curve on this one, but like I did, I recommend you get up to speed on the appalling human rights and environmental abuses carried out by ChevronTexaco in Ecuador, all in the name of industrial “progress”. The campaign currently being jointly run by Amazon Watch and the Amazon Defense Coalition is being organised under the appropriate banner of ChevronToxico, and is fighting against the might of this corporate behemoth on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadorian people.

This is from the ChevronToxico campaign site:

For over three decades, Chevron chose profit over people.

While drilling in the Ecuadorian Amazon from 1964 to 1990, Texaco – which merged with Chevron in 2001 – deliberately dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater, spilled roughly 17 million gallons of crude oil, and left hazardous waste in hundreds of open pits dug out of the forest floor. To save money, Texaco chose to use environmental practices that were obsolete, did not meet industry standards, and were illegal in Ecuador and the United States.

The result was, and continues to be, one of the worst environmental disasters on the planet. Contamination of soil, groundwater, and surface streams has caused local indigenous and campesino people to suffer a wave of mouth, stomach and uterine cancer, birth defects, and spontaneous miscarriages. Chevron has never cleaned up the mess it inherited, and its oil wastes continue to poison the rainforest ecosystem.

Today, 30,000 Ecuadorians are demanding justice in a landmark class action lawsuit. Despite Chevron’s repeated efforts to sabotage the trial, an independent court-appointed expert recently deemed Chevron responsible for up to $27 billion in damage.

While this unequal fight (by which I mean 30,000 ordinary people against the might of a corporate entity that has the ear of the world’s governments) goes on, Chevron as a company are continuing to push their “caring side” both to the public in general and to a swath of non-profit organisations who might one day be tempted to act against them. If Chevron can win the PR war by brainwashing enough well-meaning people into thinking that, actually, maybe they aren’t such a bad company after all, then their activities in sucking even more oil and gas from delicate ecosystems and cultural centres will be able to continue without too much interference.

Step forward CompassPoint, a company that has a slick line in helping Californian non-profit organisations get the best out of their finances and management structure. Their big selling point is, apparently, working “with community-based nonprofits”, which would seem to rule out having anything do do with a corporation that have gone out of their way to systematically destroy communities in Ecuador.

It seems not:

San Francisco – Chevron, a company facing widespread criticism by many Bay Area organizations for human rights abuses and environmental destruction, is the primary sponsor of CompassPoint’s “Nonprofit Day”. CompassPoint Nonprofit Services is a consulting, research, and training organization, that provides tools to the very same non-profits fighting the likes of Chevron. Chevron’s donation is the latest in a string of good-will gestures intended in deflecting attention from a $27 billion dollar lawsuit in Ecuador. Amazon Watch called upon CompassPoint and all the non-profits participating in the event to demand that Chevron fund a full-scale clean up of its toxic waste in the rainforest.

In a letter sent to CompassPoint, Amazon Watch voiced concern towards CompassPoint’s conflicting relationship with Chevron:

“We believe that as Chevron’s very prominent sponsorship of the event publicly associates your name with Chevron’s corporate brand and image, you should know what the Chevron brand has come to represent in the Ecuadorian rainforest and beyond.

“Your organization represents the best of the Bay Area. We hope that you will join us in using Chevron’s association with Nonprofit Day as an opportunity to press the company to do the moral thing in Ecuador.”

“Our concern is not in the intention of CompassPoint, rather that Chevron’s participation in Non-profit day dilutes the mission of the organization. This is typical Chevron spin, throwing peanuts to a good cause, while throwing punches at communities where they operate,” said Paul Paz y Miño, Managing Director at Amazon Watch. “This is the very same corporation that attacked last year’s Goldman Environmental Prize winners with a full page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle.” The Goldman Prize and its associated family fund are two of the most respected non-profits in the San Francisco Bay area.

Chevron has seen a wave of negative press in the past months, primarily focused on the company’s dumping of more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste water into Amazon waterways and abandonment of more than 900 unlined waste pits filled with oil sludge. In the past months, Chevron has launched its PR crisis team to new levels by hiring online bloggers, paying for bloggers to attend Chevron-chaperoned trips to Ecuador, and hiring three giants in the PR world (Edelman, Sard Verbinnen & Co., and Hill & Knowlton) to develop a crisis plan for the company.

A verdict in the $27 billion lawsuit in expected later this year or early 2010.

Sadly, the letter to CompassPoint had no effect, and their sponsorship of Non Profit Day went ahead, with Chevron being the lead sponsor and, notably, providers of a $10,000 dollar prize:

One organization will leave Nonprofit Day with a $10,000 capacity-building contract with CompassPoint. This prize, sponsored by Chevron, will be awarded during the luncheon. Your organization will be automatically entered when you register.

I love the idea of registering as an earnest non-profit, then finding you have won a prize paid for by a truly evil corporation — I wonder what the winner said:

“Thank you to CompassPoint for this wonderful prize, and also Chevron for sponsoring it. I accept this gift on behalf of 30,000 sick Ecuadorian people and the dying ecosystem, which without Chevron would not have been possible.”

If you are a fan of American Football or have an interest in animal rights, you may well have heard about the former (and soon to be “rehabilitated”) star of the NFL, Michael Vick. This was a guy who, in common with an increasing number of inner-city gang members, took part in dog fights: or rather, the poor animals he baited, drugged and caged, took part in dog fights; the humans involved stood at the side and eagerly watched two hounds rip each other to shreds…repeatedly.

Not the kind of guy you would invite to meet your mother, I would think, and certainly not the kind of guy you would ask to front an animal rights campaign. But then we all know how screwed up the world is, and particularly what lengths some organisations will go to ensure they have a steady stream of income with which to continue their work (yes, PETA, I’m talking about you and your consistently sexist campaign images).

To this list — which also includes Greenpeace, buddying up with Kimberly-Clark; WWF, having a love-in with any company who submits the cash; and the Nature Conservancy, who have never left their corporate love-nest — we must add the Humane Society of the United States, for one of the most misdirected and stupid decisions by a non-environmental NGO I have seen for a long time.

There is now a web site called Boycott the Humane Society of the United States. The images aren’t pretty, but then dog fighting isn’t either. This is their take on the whole Michael Vick–HSUS debacle:

It is with great sadness that we are compelled to call for this boycott against the Humane Society. They have facilitated Michael Vick being able to return to the NFL and football which puts forth a horrible example for young children everywhere to believe they can kill and torture dogs, and live a criminal life, and still be a great football star and a spokeperson for HSUS. No, Michael Vick will not be going around the country and teaching children what to do with violent dogs. This is preposterous. Michael Vick may be the rule rather than the exception for the NFL bad boyz with their glamour and fame privilege. But we do expect more from the Humane Society.

The Humane Society didn’t need Michael Vick to do a campaign against dog fighting. They could have pointed him out from a distance as an example of what not to do and that is exactly what they would have done had he been some poor hick in the south fighting roosters. They would have never highlighted it in this way.

The difference here is a super sophisticated public relations effort to clear Vick’s name and reputation so he can make them all some money. And indeed this deal is all about money–big money. So much money that not a week, or even a moment, can be lost in rehabilitating Michael Vick’s reputation enough to get him out on the field for those big money making games which brings in lots of blood money for all of them, including unfortunately the Humane Society.

The Humane Society, The NFL and their sponsors and this sadist Michael Vick all depend on you having a short attention span and getting used to what they have done. I don’t know about you who are reading this page, but I have a very long attention span. Hope you will speak out about this in every avenue you can and apply pressure on everyone you can think of until Michael Vick is told in no uncertain terms that he has no business teaching anything to anybody, any more than OJ needs to be snatched up by battered womens centers to teach men how not to beat and kill their wives. If Michael Vick is not euthanized like the dogs he tortured, sexually abused and murdered then the only other thing that needs to happen is he needs to shut the fuck up, listen and learn and do his best to transform himself into a human being over the next decade or so and then we might be interested in what he has to say but even then certainly not as a representative of the Humane Society or the NFL.

There is also a Facebook Group for the boycott — if you feel strongly about this, then that is the place to start.

Let’s say I had been punching you in the face for a few years during which time you had been offering no resistance to my violence. After all this time you would be a bloody mess, barely able to speak, see or breathe. Then, for practical reasons, i.e. I couldn’t find any flesh that hadn’t been already mashed and there were a few people hanging about that might hit me back, I said I would stop hitting you. The people who had been hanging about overhear this and walk away — after all, I can be trusted, can’t I? Then, let’s suppose you say that I don’t need to stop hitting you straight away and I can carry on for another couple of years, but which time you might be dead. Is that ok?

Yesterday, I received a breathless email from Daniel Kessler at Greenpeace USA, hailing the actions of a “former” face-puncher extraordinaire: a deal had been done, and all was forgiven…

Hello:

I have big news about forest protection. Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle brands, today announced stronger fiber sourcing standards that will increase conservation of forests globally and will make the company a leader for sustainably produced tissue products. In turn, Greenpeace, which worked with Kimberly-Clark on its revised standards, announced that it will end its “Kleercut” campaign, which focused on the company and its brands.

A video celebrating Kimberly-Clark’s move as well as a history of Greenpeace’s campaign can be found at www.greenpeace.org/kleercut.

Kimberly-Clark has set a goal of obtaining 100 percent of the company’s wood fiber for tissue products, including the Kleenex brand, from environmentally responsible sources. The revised standards will enhance the protection of Endangered Forests and increase the use of both Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified fiber and recycled fiber. By 2011, Kimberly-Clark will ensure that 40 percent of its North American tissue fiber is either recycled or FSC certified — a 71 percent increase from 2007 levels that represents 600,000 tones of fiber.

Also by the end of 2011, Kimberly-Clark will eliminate the purchase of any fiber from the Canadian Boreal Forest that is not FSC certified. This forest is North America’s largest old growth forest, providing habitat for threatened wildlife such as woodland caribou and a sanctuary for more than one billion migratory birds. It is also the largest terrestrial storehouse of carbon on the planet, storing the equivalent of 27 years worth of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Furthermore, the revised standards reinforce Kimberly-Clark’s long-standing ban on use of wood fiber from illegal sources; adds a preference for post-consumer recycled fiber; and supports expansion of recycling initiatives and the identification, mapping and protection of areas that have the potential to be designated as Endangered or High Conservation Value forests.

Please contact me with any questions,

Daniel
Greenpeace Press Officer
510-501-1779 (cell)
dkessler@greenpeace.org

About Kimberly-Clark

Kimberly-Clark and its well-known global brands are an indispensable part of life for people in more than 150 countries. Every day, 1.3 billion people – nearly a quarter of the world’s population – trust K-C brands and the solutions they provide to enhance their health, hygiene and well-being. With brands such as Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kotex and Depend, Kimberly-Clark holds No. 1 or No. 2 share positions in more than 80 countries. To keep up with the latest K-C news and to learn more about the company’s 137-year history of innovation, visit www.kimberly-clark.com.

About Greenpeace

Greenpeace is the leading independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful direct action and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and to promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.

The story of this “historic” agreement was prefixed by a period of decades of wanton destruction: it wasn’t merely a case of K-C not realising the damage they were doing — they knew exactly what they were doing, it was spelled out in the terms of the campaigners’ articles and petitions and the rapid denudation of the ancient forests they were wiping out. Kimberly-Clark carried out systematic ecocide on a truly gigantic scale. Greenpeace appear to have very short memories:

Go to the Kleercut web site and the banner says, “Case Closed!” But hang on! The press release quite clearly says the following:

– By the end of 2011, Kimberly-Clark will eliminate the purchase of any fiber from the Canadian Boreal Forest that is not FSC certified.

So who will be monitoring the activities of Kimberly-Clark for the next 2 years? There is nothing to suggest that they will be easing up on their destruction any time soon, and no veto on the agreement should K-C decide to increase their usage of virgin or uncertified pulp. It is also vital to note that Greenpeace Nordic’s own report heavily criticised the FSC in Sweden, saying: “The FSC has failed to prevent the destruction of HCVFs [High Conservation Value Forests] in Sweden. Swedish FSC-certified forest companies are misusing the FSC system and…the FSC are sanctioning this mismanagement by failing to stand by the FSC Principles and Criteria”. FSC certification is clearly not adequate, especially when companies wish to cover up their activities.

– By 2011, Kimberly-Clark will ensure that 40 percent of its North American tissue fiber is either recycled or FSC certified

Meaning that 60 percent will still be of extremely dubious origin in two years time, and that the remaining 40 percent could fall under a scheme that Greenpeace (Nordic) have said is unreliable. The original Kimberly-Clark policy document, makes no undertakings to increase its use of recycled materials.

The aforementioned K-C document makes another interesting statement, not mentioned in the Greenpeace USA press release. The press release states, “Kimberly-Clark has set a goal of obtaining 100 percent of the company’s wood fiber for tissue products, including the Kleenex brand, from environmentally responsible sources.” whereas the Policy Document has a different take on this:

Kimberly-Clark has a goal of purchasing 100% of its wood fiber from suppliers that have had their forestry operations or wood fiber procurement activities certified to one of the following third-party verified forest certification systems. The Corporation will give preference to wood fiber certified under FSC standards.

* For purposes of this policy, “forest certification systems” will mean the following five schemes: Forest Stewardship Coucil (FSC); Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI); Canadian Standards Association’s National Sustainable Forest Management Standards (CSA); Sistema Brasileiro de Certificacao Florestral (CERFLOR) in Brazil; and Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PERF)…

With remarkable precience, Jared Diamond in his 2005 book “Collapse”, said the following about certification schemes:

“The effectiveness of the Forest Stewardship Council has received the ultimate compliment from logging companies opposed to it: they have set up their own competing certification organizations with weaker standards. These include the Sustainable Forestry Initiative in the U.S., set up by the American Forest and Paper Association; the Canadian Standards Association; and the Pan-European Forest Council.”

“All of these ‘knockoffs’ differ from the FSC in that they do not require independent third-party certification, but they permit companies to certify themselves (I’m not joking).”

And there is no indication from K-C what the phrase “give preference to” means in the real world.

So, what we have here is a policy change made by an ecocidal company that, in reality, doesn’t promise anything fundamentally different: as far as you should be concerned, Kimberly-Clark remain an ecocidal company. But making a complete mockery of the facts, is the slavish behaviour of Greenpeace USA, quoting K-C verbatim, including the priceless phrase, “Kimberly-Clark and its well-known global brands are an indispensable part of life for people in more than 150 countries…to enhance their health, hygiene and well-being.”

Why have Greenpeace done this? Because it makes it look as though they have achieved something significant; ensuring a boost in their revenue stream, and ensuring the paid staff and volunteers feel that what they do within Greenpeace (rather than outside it) justifies their continued efforts in applauding anyone and anything — whatever their history and whatever their other continuing activities — that does anything “environmental”, however symbolic it may be. The message is that we only have to make a few trivial changes in order to prevent ecological collapse. This is bullshit, and the sooner people realise it, the sooner we will be able to escape from the powerful grip the mainstream environmental groups have over the minds of people who only want to make things better.

You can do better than that.

What is the point of protest?

To create change. I would have thought that was obvious; it is the only rational response to the question. So why has so little change happened as a result of protest in the Western world in the last 30 years? This is obvious, too: because the activities that masquerade as “protest” in the modern age, have as little to do with protest as a Toyota Prius has to do with environmental sustainability. The vast majority of “protests” organised by groups such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, are simply expressions of feeling; they are not even expressions of intent, because it is clear that there is no intention of going further than marching up and down the street, waving banners and placards, shouting slogans, beating drums and singing sings.

As I wrote in A Matter Of Scale:

So, go and protest, make some noise, wave some banners, sign a petition: just make sure you stay within the law. I mean it – protest of some form or another is permitted in most nations, but the severity and the type of protest allowed depends on the legislation that is in place; both standing legislation and the widely used “state of emergency” which, in fact is simply an extension of the existing laws. As the Zimbabweans ponder their electoral fate, the Mugabe regime has imposed “emergency” laws to prevent any form of gathering that may threaten the government. What the Mugabe regime knows only too well is that in Zimbabwe, as with many other African, South American and Asian states, protest often takes an entirely different form to the type of protest the people of the industrial West have become accustomed too. The Mugabe regime know that real protest is capable of overthrowing governments; whereas in the USA, for instance, it almost goes without saying that protest will lead to nothing more than a warm feeling in the hearts of those taking part…The laws in each country are tailored to suit the appetite of the population for change: a country full of people that want to fight for change needs to be kept tightly controlled; a country full of catatonic, drip-fed consumers can march all they like, be given a well-controlled soapbox on TV – and the voltage on the tasers can be turned right down.

As with any mass gathering of people, there will be friction between those on one side and those on the other, and in the case of the G20 marches and sit-ins, there were a number of inexcusable events that took place, including one death:

On the “protestors'” side, there were also a number of inexcusable activities, at least equal in quantity to the number of people who went along to the event thinking that by marching peacefully, they would make any difference at all. Of course they wouldn’t, and it is with this in mind that the UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights have decided to take advantage of the submissiveness of mainstream environmental and human rights groups (the ones who organise such “protests”) and proposed that a system of Objective Mediation be set up, ostensibly to protect the human rights of people taking part in such events.

Independent Northern Ireland-style go-betweens could ease tensions between police and protesters, say MPs.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights said poor communications lay at the heart of problems at the G20 protests on 1 April.

Its report says a decision to “kettle” some of the London demonstrators had failed to recognise their rights.

The Metropolitan Police said it learned lessons from G20 and was committed to working with all protest groups.

One man died after the London protests and investigators are looking at other formal complaints about police actions.

The committee said there was a “long way to go” before police put human rights at the core of their planning and live operations.

In its review of the G20 protests, the MPs and peers argued that the Metropolitan Police became heavy-handed after a lack of communication between the two sides.

“Both protesters and police must share information,” said the report. “Whilst this happens in many cases it is clear that at least some aspects of communication at the G20 protests were poor.

“Mutual distrust was apparent and the police and protesters seemed to have different expectations of what the dialogue should be about and how it should proceed.

“This ineffective communication led to frustration on both sides and, possibly, to the police taking a more heavy handed approach to the Climate Camp protest than would otherwise have been the case.”

(BBC News)

It will come as no surprise that the real reason for such “mediation” is simply to further dilute the already benign nature of public protest. As Ward Churchill states in Pacifism As Pathology:

One will find hundreds, sometimes thousands, assembled in an orderly fashion, listening to selected speakers calling for an end to this or that aspect of lethal state activity, carrying signs “demanding” the same thing…and – typically – the whole thing is quietly disbanded with exhortations to the assembled to “keep working” on the matter and to please sign a petition.

Throughout the whole charade it will be noticed that the state is represented by a uniformed police presence keeping a discreet distance and not interfering with the activities. And why should they? The organizers will have gone through “proper channels” to obtain permits. Surrounding the larger mass of demonstrators can be seen others…their function is to ensure the demonstrators remain “responsible,” not deviating from the state-sanctioned plan of protest

Set up a mediation system, and those running the “protest” have even more control over their charges by virtue of their elite status as official communicators with the mediators. Set up a mediation system, and the police have even more information with which they can micromanage the events as they unfold. Set up a mediation system and “protest” becomes little more than a state-sponsored media spectacle which threatens nothing, and leads to no change whatsoever.

Real protest doesn’t unfold according to a pre-agreed agenda; real protest is illegal; real protest creates change. The gulf between symbolic and non-symbolic action is widening as I write — it may be your last chance to jump over to the side which is actually going to achieve something.

A new campaign was launched a few days ago, with the blessing of the United Nations: it’s called Hopenhagen. There is clearly a huge level of creative genius behind the name (ok, I’m being sarcastic), as you can tell it is a portmanteau word, consisting of “hope” and “copenhagen”, and indeed it is intended to be the start of a massive advertising push to provide “a platform for individuals around the world to participate and have a say in the future of the world.”

That last bit was extracted from the Hopenhagen press release, as issued by IAA Global:

(June 23, 2009 – Cannes, France) The United Nations, together with the International Advertising Association and a coalition of the world’s leading advertising, marketing and media agencies today launched Hopenhagen – a movement that empowers global citizens to engage in the December United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen – at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Hopenhagen is a global marketing and communications initiative that will inspire and generate mass activation around the world.

“Climate change is one of the epic challenges facing this and future generations. World leaders will come together for the Copenhagen climate change conference in December and every citizen of the world has a stake in the outcome. It is time to seal a deal. We need a global movement that mobilizes real change,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Hopenhagen is about more than hope. “It is about global action for a global climate treaty and a better future for humankind,” Ban added.

Delegates from 192 nations will meet in December in Copenhagen to ratify a new international global climate treaty, which will take effect when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Recognizing the tremendous role that communications will play leading up to and during the Conference, the United Nations engaged the global advertising and media industry through the International Advertising Association (IAA) to develop a comprehensive communications program to drive public awareness and generate action. Hopenhagen will complement the UN’s “Seal the Deal!” campaign, which calls on world leaders to “unite to find a solution to climate change that is fair, balanced, effective and science-based.”

“Climate change is a universal challenge, and we believe the world’s citizens are ready to act – they are just seeking the right platform,” said IAA Executive Director Michael Lee. “The strategy and stunning creative concept for the Hopenhagen idea came from WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather team, digital framework and direction were developed by MDC Partner’s Colle+McVoy, and the global PR and messaging plans spearheaded by Omnicom’s Ketchum. The collaboration that has taken place among the world’s leading agencies to develop this campaign for the United Nations is unprecedented and a testament to the significance the industry places on the need for action to address climate change.”

This raises a hell of a lot of questions: not least that if Hopenhagen is the brainchild of an industry that depends on continuous consumer spending for its existence, how could it be sustainable in any way? More worrying, though, that the advertising industry seems to have the support of the United Nations.

While on the surface Hopenhagen appears to have United Nations approval, there is actually nothing on the press release that links the two organisations (IAA and UN) directly. Have they used authority by association? It turns out that the UN are actually a big part of this. A United Nations press release from 2008, says:

SECRETARY-GENERAL LAUNCHES PUBLIC AWARENESS PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN UNITED NATIONS,

ADVERTISING LEADERS FOR NEW GLOBAL AGREEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE IN COPENHAGEN

A new public awareness partnership to support United Nations-led efforts to promote a new global agreement on climate change in Copenhagen next December was launched today by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and more than 20 advertising industry leaders of the international advertising community.

Initiated by the International Advertising Association (UN-IAA), and timed to coincide with the opening of the sixty-third United Nations General Assembly and the fifth annual Advertising Week in New York, the new partnership marks a milestone in private sector support for action on climate change. The partnership builds on the International Advertising Association’s social responsibility programmes with the United Nations, a desire by the organizers of Advertising Week to galvanize the forces of the advertising community for a common, larger good, and support from the most powerful leaders of the global communications industry to come up with strategic solutions to one of the most important issues facing the planet today.

Michael Lee, Executive Director of the International Advertising Association, said, “It has become increasingly clear that the complexities of climate change issues present a communications challenge with both policymakers and the general public. The global ad community can make a significant contribution to help change consumer behaviour, influence public policy, and help the UN make further progress on this issue. The ultimate selling proposition might just be saving the planet.”

Mr. Ban stated, “We need action on climate change, and I applaud the determination of the advertising industry to help. As climate change affects everyone, everywhere, the UN needs partners in the private sector and in civil society to mobilize and spur action. Now is the time for action, and we welcome this assistance from the advertising community, which will bolster our present capacities.”

So has the advertising industry decided to abandon its work ensuring infinite economic growth and stop working with corporations; has the United Nations gone corporate and made the 2009 Copenhagen Summit a front for business as usual; or has the IAA stymied the UN entirely, leaving the UN thinking (with its collective mind) this is a really good idea for the planet?

The first question is easy to address — go to the IAA Global website, and straight away you see who the big players are in the organisation:

I also know, from various experiments carried out, that any anti-corporate messages on the laughable “global community” message page are deleted from the message list (that doesn’t mean I don’t encourage you to try and ruin the database). After getting the message total up to 90,000 — with the help of a few good friends — the counter was reset overnight, and the list became moderated. In fact, I suspect that now the only reason the counter is going up is because members of IAA are adding their own messages. Clearly any dissenting views will not be tolerated: we can Hope for change, but it won’t happen through Hopenhagen.

Which means that either the UN is a corporate body; or they have been greenwashed.

It would be tempting, if not satisfying, to think the latter — surely the United Nations wouldn’t take the corporate shilling in place of standing up for the planet in general, would they?

But they would. As I showed in this article about the Climate Group (“businesses and civil society are all discovering that the move towards a low-carbon economy, far from costing the Earth, can actually save money and invigorate growth“), Ban Ki-Moon doesn’t miss an opportunity to mention economic growth in his speeches — listen for yourself, next time he speaks. But here’s the real clincher: the UN’s own Seal The Deal campaign (basically a petition) which was mentioned in the Hopenhagen press release above is, above all, an attempt to ensure the global economy can continue growing (my emphasis below):

On December 7, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to respond to one of the greatest challenges facing humanity: climate change and sustainable economic growth. But how to protect the planet and create a green economy that will lead to long-term prosperity? The negotiations in Copenhagen will need to answer this question. Our existence depends on it.

Reaching a deal by the time the meeting ends on December 18 will depend not only on political negotiations but also on public pressure from around the globe. Public support must be galvanized. To do this, the United Nations has launched “Seal the Deal”, a campaign that encourages users to sign an online, global petition which will be presented to world leaders. The petition will serve as a reminder that world leaders must negotiate a fair, balanced and effective agreement in Copenhagen, and that they must seal a deal to power green growth, protect our planet and build a more sustainable, prosperous global economy that will benefit all nations and all people.

If you know what “green growth” means then please tell me, but as is very clear indeed; economic growth is what has caused the global environmental situation we see now. As I wrote in a recent Earth Blog article:

“The rich and powerful have no intention of changing; they want things to carry on as they have done since Industrial Civilization was first created. For them, the worst thing that can happen is for the Economy that has fed their – and our – dreams to power down and fail. For the planet, and every single natural habitat, food web and species on it, the best thing that can happen is for that destructive thing called Economic Growth to be turned on its head, and buried for good.”

As for this horrible little, advertising driven campaign known as Hopenhagen: it’s greenwashing, and nothing more.

I had a very exciting delivery yesterday: I had a new mobile phone (cellphone) through the post. It’s one of those Nokia ones that flip out so you can use the mini keyboard to type messages, which is perfect for me because I have very small fingers to go with the very small keys. Actually, I say ‘new’ but actually you can’t buy these any more, it was second hand from eBay (and I know it’s second hand because it has a small scuff mark at the top) and works fine – it makes phone calls and sends text messages; should it do anything else?

When I used to be an IT manager, I was continually offered upgrades, but turned them all down — the phone I started with was basically the phone I finished with, and the one that I ended up using for another 2 years until the screen became too scratched to see through (from rubbing on keys in my pocket) and the green “call” button stopped working, which is obviously quite an important thing for a phone. I would say it was 7 years old when it finally broke. I have replaced it with exactly the same model.

What a rubbish consumer that makes me.

Now we see Sony Ericsson touting a “green” phone.

Mobile phone company Sony Ericsson will unveil two ‘green’ handsets tomorrow with a carbon footprint 15% lower than current models. By cutting packaging, using recycled plastics and reducing the use of solvents in the paints, the electronics company claims to have made the handsets more environmentally friendly.

The new phones, the C901 GreenHeart and the Naite, part of what Sony Ericsson says will be a revised portfolio of environmentally friendly phones to be rolled out in the next two years. It is also part of the company’s wider mission to cut 20% of its total carbon emissions by 2015.

Of course, if you want a ‘green’ phone you will have to get rid of any phone you already have (Hey! You can recycle it, so that’s alright then! [sigh]) and buy this new replacement, which obviously — like everything in the consumer electronics industry — has some nifty new features, like telling you how many calories your dinner contains, or allowing you to see through brick walls, or something like that. If new goods didn’t have new features then (disaster!) people wouldn’t feel they had to replace their old* equipment; they would just be content with using it until it broke down, which is terrible for the economy.

Sadly, Greenpeace didn’t feel the need to mention this when asked about the ‘green’ phone (why does no one ever ask me?):

Iza Kruszewska, toxics campaigner at Greenpeace UK welcomed the new phones from Sony Ericsson and said that the company had a good record in reducing its use of harmful chemicals. But she said the company should increase the number of its recycling points around the world. “They do mention their ambition to increase the number of collection points and take-back schemes they have globally but they are well behind Nokia on this.”

Yay! “Increase the number of its recycling points” — not “stop making us buy more crap all the time”, but “Increase the number of…recycling points.” I think that says all we need to know about the ‘radical’ nature of Greenpeace. According to Greenpiss (the new name for “Greenpeace-Lite”), you can keep buying loads of crap, and if it’s got ‘green’ credentials then you don’t even have to feel guilty about it…

(* I say “old”, but the fashion obsolescence treadmill keeps redefining old so that you feel obliged to buy new stuff even when your existing stuff is still new!)

For the first time in about two weeks my garden is getting a decent smattering of rain, which might refresh the water butts so I can keep the vegetables growing during the next dry period. Things like this bother me from day to day, as I get more concerned with trying to become self-sufficient (like yesterday when I found that my garlic had grown into garlicky spring onions rather than bulbs). That said, I can’t imagine myself becoming any less concerned with the kind of dour, trivial activity that masquerades as positive action: symbolic action and inadequate solutions are just as dangerous as intentional greenwashing, and that is why it is very important that you understand the implications of the Energy Union; a collaborative project that says it has the solution to our current predicament.

I first learnt about this on Wednesday, when I received an email from someone (who I won’t name, because I believe he has been duped) working for a media company who wanted to know where he could get hold of some videos of greenwashing to assist with a project.

Hi Keith

….Its for a satirical piece for a project called Energy Union (energyunion.eu).

This looked interesting, so I went to the web site and was a little underwhelmed. Sourcing videos wouldn’t be a problem, but did I want to help out with something that was only pushing for a 40% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020? I wasn’t suspicious at this point, merely unmotivated because I had seen campaigns like this so many times before. It also happened that I was aware of something being worked on by Friends of the Earth which had an identical carbon target.

Hi xxxxx

I’ve had a look at your site, and I’m afraid there is a little greenwashing going on there too – though it may be unintentional. You see, a 40% cut by 2020 may be tough by civilised standards, but because we need a 95% cut by 2030 — based on current work by Jim Hansen, David Wasdell et al — you are selling yourselves way short (I do realise this is a FoE project, so that would explain the conservatism). If the demand is not for a 60% cut by 2020 then you will end up compromising on 20% with everyone, including FoE (I’ve worked with them a lot in the past) going away happy: if the industrial system is happy then you know something is badly wrong.

So, I will do my best to source some good material for you, but only on the understanding that the commitment is increased commensurate with a 95% cut in the industrial world by 2030. Does that sound fair? Given that the future of humanity depends on it, then I would be a hypocrite to endorse anything else.

Best
Keith

As this point, I assumed that the correspondent had some say in the project, and had no idea who was running the show overall. He responded thus:

Hi Keith,

I realise that the reality of the science doesn’t match the efforts of some environmental NGOs and campaigns, but we are doing our best. Fyi, the project is not being run by us or by FOE. Its being run by an Munich based agency and the EC. So we don’t have any control about the political ask. Our role is to produce an audio-visual show that, amongst other aims, satirizes big corporations greenwash efforts. We’ve very much been given artist freedom and so want to push the envelope as much as possible. We would really love your help sourcing high quality video of greenwash adverts and news items but I’m afraid I don’t have the power to meet the criteria you suggest.

Can you help us anyway?

I know the future of the planet is at stake, for myself I spent many years as an wwoofer, Permaculture activist and road protester. I try and work from many angles not relying on any single avenue. Hopefully you can see the value of the same tactic.

The guy means well and apparently has artistic freedom, but to what extent? Clearly a video saying that the project he is working for is totally inadequate and leading people in entirely the wrong direction wouldn’t go down well with the agency; but given what he said about FoE not running things, I was keen to find out more.

What I did find made me angry: not only because the aims of the project were inadequate, but because the “solutions” presented played right into the hands of the system that is ensuring we continue destroying the natural world and that these solutions were being proposed by vested interests…vested corporate interests.

Hi xxxxx

I don’t think you are doing your best, otherwise you would realise that what you are working on is helping the existing system to continue taking us on the path to destruction. I’m assuming you have looked at the list of Partners, of which you are one: the Project Coordinator is a renewable energy consultancy, who presumably will make an awful lot of money out of the (trivial) 40% cut if it means driving governments into investing wholesale in renewables. Another key partner is EREC, who are an “umbrella organisation of the European renewable energy industry, trade and research associations active in the sectors of bioenergy, geothermal, ocean, small
hydropower, solar electricity, solar thermal and wind energy. EREC represents the entire renewable energy industry with an annual turnover of more than 40 billion Euros and more than 400,000 employees.” This is big business.

What is disturbing, apart from the modest cut proposed, is the list of “solutions” (http://energyunion.eu/intelligent_energy/solutions) which concentrates almost solely on converting electricity generation over to renewables, yet says almost nothing about reducing overall consumption, the *only* way the problem can be fixed. This *is* greenwash.

So, it is clear that you have either been misled, or you are happy to work with the system that dictates that we must keep the economy growing, and to hell with the consequences.

There is no way that I could ever work with Energy Union. I will, however, be putting Energy Union on The Unsuitablog, for the reasons I have stated above, and in my previous email.

Regards

Keith

N.B. The campaign lead is Friends of the Earth Europe, as I said
(http://energyunion.eu/partners)

Don’t let yourself get distracted: there is a lot of work ahead, and it doesn’t need any “help” from politicians or businesses.