Earlier this month, in a Guardian Online article titled “Should the media be more supportive of corporate moves towards sustainability?,” it was revealed that the new head of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo, “has decided to work in partnership with companies rather than only criticise them from the outside.” This is big news. Very big news.

Greenpeace has been perhaps best known within the field of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) as one of the few ENGOs that consistently takes an adversarial approach and refuses to work in partnerships with corporations. Consider this. When you think about Greenpeace, probably some of the first thoughts that come to mind are their publicity-grabbing antics and their reputation as “environmental rebels.” Will that rep now begin to be diluted?

There are many other ENGOs that, long ago, adopted the strategy of cooperation rather than confrontation: CERES, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, to name some. (See “Shades of Green,” by Andrew Hoffman, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring 2009) Now it seems that, based on Kumi’s announcement, Greenpeace is beginning to move in that direction, as well. But, it appears that Greenpeace will not transform themselves overnight. From what Kumi said, it seems that Greenpeace will, at least for the time being, pursue a bifurcated strategy of cooperation and confrontation. Such a two-pronged approach might be difficult to pull-off. The cooperation side might leave them vulnerable to the co-optation of their confrontation side, damaging their brand and that environmental rebel rep to which I referred above.

And if that environmental rebel rep was to be damaged, one question would pop into my mind. On whom will we depend when we want some entertainment from cheesy street theater?