Among one of the most popular activities of environmental NGOs is the issue of demands for corporate accountability. I don’t think that that’s a bad thing. Corporations, like any organization, can at times run roughshod over the rules. Just as the American system of government with its checks and balances on each branch of the public sector inspires accountability and transparency, having a similar system, albeit informal, in the private sector can prove beneficial. It can prove beneficial, though, only if those doing the oversight are ethical, open, and transparent. To whom are the eNGOs accountable?
Let’s use one major eNGO as an example. Friends of the Earth US (FOE-US), about which I’ve written frequently on this blog, is one of the largest eNGOs in world. A recent visit to the Web site of FOE-US (foe.org) revealed no information which would indicate how this eNGOs governs itself. Such information would be in the organization’s bylaws.
But my search on the foe.org site for the word “bylaws” yielded no results. Hmmm. I searched more deeply.
There was no bylaw information posted on the site, but they did post a collection of annual reports. I reviewed them.
My review of their annual reports, from 2003 through 2010, although filled with much glitzy and flashy information about their various campaigns (perhaps published there in an effort to induce donations) showed no information about organizational governance, not a whisper about the bylaws. (Speaking of 2003, please see my related post “Friends of the Earth Received Narrow Support” which demonstrates that for the years 2003 through 2006 FOE-US received almost 60% of its funding from only 11 donors.) Concerning governance, the closest thing I found in those annual reports were simple listings of the board of directors members and listings of the staff. I already assume they have a board of directors and a staff, but telling me their names doesn’t tell me how the organization is run.
How are those members of the board of directors elected? Are they even elected? Or are they appointed?
If the members of the board of directors are elected, who votes for them? The donors? The rank and file members? The staff? Other members of the board of directors?
If they are appointed, who appoints them?
If the donors vote for them, how many votes do the donors get apiece? Do they get one vote per donor, or do they get one vote per dollar donated? Sort of like shareholders in a corporation.
The answers to all of these questions, and others I haven’t taken the time to pose, are critical in assessing whether this corporate monitor, this organization that regularly calls for corporate accountability, is itself accountable and therefore worthy of doing the job that they appoint themselves to do.
Just as any organization can run rough shod over the rules, eNGOs are no exception.
If FOE-US made its corporate bylaws accessible on its Web site or reprinted them in their annual reports, their accountability would become more apparent.
Continue reading Why Are FOE’s Bylaws So Difficult to Find?
A government that does an end-run around the spirit of its own laws? And by exploiting green activists in the process? Impossible, you say? Then perhaps you believe that there was no gambling a Rick’s Café Americain?
A recent opinion column, titled “The Multinationals’ Dilemma — Gratify the Greens or Protect the Poor?” and written by James M. Roberts of The Heritage Foundation, made these very assertions, but without the tongue-in-cheek suggestion of disbelief. In his article, Mr. Roberts discusses many different issues, perhaps too many for the space allotted him, the foremost of which is the issue of how multinational corporations may actually damage economic progress when they acquiesce to the protest demands of various activist groups. This is a complicated and controversial issue, one which I have often discussed on this blog. But, this issue is not the topic of today’s post.
Rather, the topic of today’s posts is one of the minor issues as raised by Mr. Roberts in his opinion article. That issue is the financing of activist groups by governments and the reason for such financing. I previously dealt with this topic in my April 2010 post “Nice Work . . . If You Can Get It? Friends of the Earth Does.”
In that post, I noted that in 2008 Friends of the Earth Europe received over 50% of its annual income from a European government grant. Of their €1.5 million budget for that year, Friends of the Earth Europe received €790,000 in the form of a grant from the Directorate General Environmental, the environmental commission of the European government. (Figures per the International Policy Network (IPN). Please see my previous post for full citation.) As I said in the title of that previous post, nice work if you can get it, eh? For sure. But what’s even more interesting is the reason for the awarding of such financing.
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"
In a recent article entitled “Friends of the Earth fire back at corportate ‘greenwashing’ ,” Metronews.ca writer, Romina Mc Guinness, filed a story about how Friends of the Earth (FOE) has pointed out various incidents of what they, FOE, believe to be corporate greenwashing. Well, this story really isn’t news. Stories about corporate greenwashing pop up in the news now and again. Many of them emanate either from FOE, or Greenpeace, or another ENGO.
No, what I found interesting about this story, other than the fact that they misspelled the word “corporate” in their story title (yes, that new word “corportate” is theirs, not mine), is the way that Romina put a “foundation” of facts under her story.
After listing several instances of greenwashing, as per a FOE source which she listed in the article, Romina lists a greenwashing claim of her own, saying how “even coal companies are claiming to be environmentally friendly.” As an example she cites German power-provider, E.ON, who she says “has plans to build coal-powered plants, yet in its advertising campaigns, the company focuses on its renewable power sourcing schemes.” Then she says, “The facts speak for themselves — energy website electricityinfo.org states that between April 2008 and March 2009 E.ON’s portfolio was: coal 43.4 per cent, natural gas 45.2 per cent, nuclear 6.2 per cent and renewables a tiny 0.3 per cent.”
Well, the phrase “the facts speak for themselves” got me curious. I thought, “Who are these facts that are speaking for themselves and, by the way, who the heck is electricityinfo.org?” So, I did a bit of digging. It wasn’t difficult to find the answers to my questions.
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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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