During the past couple of weeks, I’ve blogged about Greenpeace’s transparency as enabled by the reports they have filed with the Global Reporting Initiative. To explain the GRI reporting objective, as I wrote previously in “Why Doesn’t Greenpeace Report Its Credibility?,” please continue.
Per the Global Reporting Initiative, the GRI “is a network-based organization that produces a comprehensive sustainability reporting framework that is widely used globally. . . . GRI’s core goals include the mainstreaming of disclosure on environmental, social and governance performance.”
Via the GRI, many corporations, labor, academic, and professional organizations report to the world their positions on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. To improve this process for NGO (non-governmental organization) reporting, during May 2010 the GRI created the NGO Sector Supplement, which was a framework modeled on other GRI report structures, affording NGOs a way to better report their accountability and sustainability positions to their stakeholders. Greenpeace International was one of the founding organizers behind the establishment of the NGO Sector Supplement.(3rd paragraph of link)
According to the Global Reporting Initiative, you may view the GRI transparency reports that Greenpeace International and its 28 independently operating organizations have filed by going to this link (see “Download the GRI Reports” list). As that reference doesn’t appear to be complete, curious as that may be, you will also find some additionally referenced Greenpeace GRI reports on the INGO Accountability Charter Web site.
Summarizing these two sources, I have found only seven GRI reports for Greenpeace at-large. Those seven reports are spread over three years. The two sources show that Greenpeace International filed GRI reports in 2007, 2008, and 2010. The two sources also show that for 2010, one GRI report each was filed by Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Greenpeace Netherlands, Greenpeace Japan, and Greenpeace Mediterranean. Seven reports total.
Please keep in mind that Greenpeace as an organization has 28 independently operated offices around the world. Realistically, each one of those offices could file a GRI report about its own independent operations.
By going to the GRI site and downloading the reports list, as referenced in paragraph 4 above (or simply click here), you will see that the GRI has been accepting these transparency reports since 1999. That’s twelve years of opportunity that Greenpeace has had for all 28 of its independent organizations to file their transparency reports with the GRI. If each of the 28 organizations filed one report for each of the 12 years, then we would see 336 reports listed. But instead we see only seven.
Greenpeace has certainly missed a good opportunity to be more transparent to the public in whose interest it claims to act.
Last Friday, I posted “Greenpeace NZ ‘Accountable’ to Themselves” in which I reviewed Greenpeace New Zealand’s statement that they were committed to the INGO Accountability Charter principle of including campaign targets as stakeholders. However, in that post I showed how they failed to implement this principle as evidenced via their 2010 Annual Report.
Today I did some research on a neighboring Greenpeace, that is Greenpeace Australia Pacific. Unlike Greenpeace NZ, Greenpeace AP has filed a 2010 Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) report.* In section 2.7 of that report they state:
. . . our stakeholders include those we seek to persuade
in government, industry and the media . . .
This statement adheres to the INGO Accountability Charter principle shown in my post from last Friday which states that NGO stakeholders are to include:
“Those whose policies, programmes or behaviour we (the NGOS) wish to influence.”
Parenthesis mine
Greenpeace AP’s position is somewhat of an improvement over Greenpeace NZ, and a move toward accountability. Although after an examination of Greenpeace AP’s annual reports, I could not find much information on their governance procedures, nor could I find any references to campaign targets as stakeholders. It would be nice to see such references in Greenpeace AP’s annual report.
Perhaps the 2011 Greenpeace AP Annual Report will contain this information.
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* The reader should note that, according to my review, only about five regional Greenpeace offices have filed a GRI report.
Currently, I’m reading a terrific book entitled Good Cop, Bad Cop – Environmental NGOs and their Strategies toward Business. The title accurately describes the subject matter within the book. Edited by Thomas P. Lyon, the book is a collection of essays written by various experts within the field of the “private politics” between environmental NGOs (ENGOs) and business. In addition to articles by experts in sociology, economics, and political science, with each giving their own specialized view of ENGO and business engagement strategies, there are also articles by business and ENGO executives.
One of the articles in the book is entitled “Greenpeace” and is written by Kert Davies, who is listed in the book as being the research director for Greenpeace. Again, the title accurately describes the content. (Although, the book does not say if Kert is the research director for Greenpeace International, Greenpeace UK, Greenpeace Canada, etc.) In his article, Kert gives an historic overview of Greenpeace, and discusses its objectives and focus along with the organizational structure of that ENGO, as well as other topics. Toward the end of his article, Kert details some case studies describing some direct actions in which Greenpeace has engaged various corporations. One of those cases studies is titled the “ExxonSecrets Campaign.”
The ExxonSecrets campaign was a direct action against Exxon Mobil that started in 2001. Kert’s article states, on page 205 of Good Cop, that “the primary objective of this campaign was to remove or lessen corporate interference in U.S. climate policy . . . a key strategy was to put ExxonMobil in a negative light as a laggard among corporations, thereby motivating other companies to take proactive measures to avoid similar treatment.”
Although Kert’s article is not precisely clear on this next item, apparently one of the factors driving this Greenpeace direct action was a “leaked document” from the American Petroleum Institute (API), which Kert says was the subject of a New York Times front page article in April 1998. (I’ve read that New York Times article and will comment on it in the next paragraph.) Per Kert’s article, the “leaked document” indicated that Exxon had participated in the development of a group which would run a multi-million dollar, multi-year campaign “to promote contrary scientific opinions and raise . . . uncertainty among the public . . .” Also, per Kert’s article,
the leaked document stated, “Victory Will Be Achieved When . . . Average citizens ‘understand’ (recognize) uncertainties in climate science; recognition of uncertainties becomes part of conventional wisdom” and “Media ‘understands’ (recognizes) uncertainties in climate science.”
More is to be learned about this group. Referring back to that New York Times article, which was entitled “Industry Group Plans to Battle Climate Treaty” (by John H. Cushman, Jr., New York Times, April 26, 1998, p. A1) and aside from the article, in my opinion, being somewhat polemic in its perspective toward the global warming debate, the Times article stated that “the industry group said it wanted to develop a ‘sound scientific alternative’
Continue reading Greenpeace Wants You to "Have It Their Way"
Does the Greenpeace CEO make more than the Exxon Mobil CEO?
Well, yes and no. In terms of absolute dollars, no. Not even close. But, in terms of a percentage of their respective organization’s revenue, yes. More. Very much more.
In terms of compensation as a percentage of revenue, the Greenpeace CEO pulls in considerably more than does his counterpart at Exxon Mobil.
Recently I performed research addressing this issue. The reason I performed this research was due to activist’s and NGO’s frequent claims that CEOs of multinational corporations (MNCs) take as compensation an unfair proportion of their companies’ overall revenue. After recently hearing this claim again, perhaps for about the 500th time, I wondered, “Who actually makes more in terms of percentage of revenue? Huge multinationals? Or NGOs?” I decided to do some digging, create a comparison, and take a look.
Methodology
Now, to address this question, what I decided to do was just take a “quick and dirty” look. I just wanted to test my theory with some trial research. Therefore, at the outset my intention was not to do an exhaustive study by including a large number of NGOs and MNCs in a representative and statistically controlled sample. When I began this research I decided that I would save that exhaustive study for another occasion should my theory be supported by the results of this “thumbnail” research project.
To commence my pilot research project, I simply selected, very much at random, one NGO and one multinational. The first two of each that came to mind were Greenpeace and Exxon Mobil. These two organizations are often at odds with each other and both are frequently in the news, making them top of mind.
To identify the revenues of Greenpeace I went to Guidestar.org. Guidestar is an organization which aggregates information about non-profit corporations. At their site, you may search for your non-profit of interest and find information you desire, much of it a no charge. One of the pieces of information stored by Guidestar is a non-profit’s US IRS Form 990.
The IRS Form 990 is a document that must be filed by all tax-exempt non-profit organizations operating within the United States. This document is much like a tax return and contains some information similar to what you would find in a for-profit corporation’s annual report or 10K filing. Among the information shown in a Form 990 is annual revenues and executive compensation. On the Guidestar site, I located Greenpeace’s Forms 990.
To obtain the revenue and executive compensation information for Exxon Mobil, I journeyed to SEC.gov, the site of the Securities and Exchange Commission for the United States. At that site, I accessed Exxon Mobil’s Schedule 14A Proxy Statement which contained summary compensation figures for Exxon Mobil executives for the years 2006 – 2008. Also available on that site was the Exxon Mobil 10K, containing the annual revenue figures that I sought. Additional information on Exxon Mobil’s revenue was obtained from their 2008 Annual Report available at Continue reading Greenpeace CEO Makes "More" Than Exxon CEO?
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About  Here at " Richard Telofski on The War on Capitalism," I discuss and analyze the individuals and groups conducting campaigns against capitalism. In the articles on this site, I provide analysis on lesser known facts about this movement. More . . .
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