The more I review them, the more Greenpeace’s transparency reports continue to disappoint as well as amuse.
In Greenpeace International’s 2010 Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) submission (section 2.2), the NGO states that they “promote open, informed debate about society’s environmental choices.” Such words conjure up images of the Lincoln – Douglas debates and suggest the gentility of intellectual exchange. Yet, that’s not exactly the image I would say most people have of Greenpeace.
Greenpeace is, as they say in the Intro to that same GRI submission, a “global advocacy organization.” Advocacy organizations don’t debate. They advocate; they promote; they shame; they demonstrate, with or without legitimate foundation under their arguments or with or without truth behind their cause.
In the 2009 – 2010 Greenpeace US Annual Report (page 3), Greenpeace describes its “victory” over Nestlé in a dispute regarding palm oil sourcing as one where the company was “shamed by millions of consumers who unleashed their outrage on the company through Facebook and Twitter.” I observed that social media campaign while it happened. Read about it here. The outrage, in what I came to call “The Kit Kat Incident,” to which Greenepeace refers was orchestrated by Greenpeace; much of it, at least, was not spontaneous on the part of those “millions of consumers.” Such actions do not constitute debate. Such actions constitute advocacy.
As I observed in a previous post, “If Greenpeace was not confrontational, would they be known for protest actions such as draping a banner over Mount Rushmore, or scaling the Canadian parliament building, or for disrupting a Nestlé shareholders meeting by rappelling down from the ceiling with leaflets and banners flying?”
Greenpeace is not a debating society and this point was driven home in a CNN interview with Kumi Naidoo, the Executive Director of Greenpeace International. In that May 2010 interview, Mr. Naidoo stated ”We’ve got lots of dialogue going on with a range of companies. Even with Nestlé we had been talking with them, but if talk does not deliver the results, we have to create the possibility for millions of people who care about the environment to send a clear message. Those [companies] that don’t have products that are sold to the public, the challenge there is slightly different, but when you have a company that sells a product directly to the global public you have a greater ability to leverage things more quickly.”
This type of philosophy is not based on open debate. This type of philosophy is based on coercion and the leadership of that coercion (“we have to create the possibility”).
So, come on Greenpeace. Give us a little credit. Don’t try to “nicewash” your image by telling us in your GRI report that you promote open debate. Perhaps then you might earn more points on the transparency rating that you are trying to earn by filing these reports.
