Is Big Business Buying Out the Environmental Movement?

[marmar]

via AlterNet:


Is Big Business Buying Out the Environmental Movement?
By Phil Mattera, Corporate Research Project. Posted June 5, 2007.

With Big Business going green, is it a sign that environmental campaigns have prevailed and are setting the corporate agenda? Or have enviros been duped into endorsing what may be little more than a new wave of corporate greenwashing?

In the business world these days, it appears that just about everything is for sale. Multi-billion-dollar deals are commonplace, and even venerable institutions such as the Wall Street Journal find themselves put into play. Yet companies are not the only things being acquired. This may turn out to be the year that big business bought a substantial part of the environmental movement.

That's one way of interpreting the remarkable level of cooperation that is emerging between some prominent environmental groups and some of the world's largest corporations. What was once an arena of fierce antagonism has become a veritable love fest as companies profess to be going green and get lavishly honored for doing so. Earlier this year, for instance, the World Resources Institute gave one of its "Courage to Lead" awards to the chief executive of General Electric.

Every day seems to bring another announcement from a large corporation that it is taking steps to protect the planet. IBM, informally known as Big Blue, launched its Project Big Green to help customers slash their data center energy usage. Newmont Mining Co., the world's largest gold digger, endorsed a shareholder resolution calling for a review of its environmental impact.

Home Depot introduced an Eco Options label for thousands of green products. General Motors and oil major ConocoPhillips joined the list of corporate giants that have come out in support of a mandatory ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions. Bank of America said it would invest $20 billion in sustainable projects over the next decade.

...(snip)...

In any event, it would behoove enviros to be more skeptical of corporate green claims and less eager to jump into bed with business. It certainly makes sense to seek specific concessions from corporations and to offer moderate praise when they comply, but activists should maintain an arm's-length relationship to business and not see themselves as partners. After all, the real purpose of the environmental movement is not simply to make technical adjustments to the way business operates (that's the job of consultants) but rather to push for fundamental and systemic changes.

Moreover, there is a risk that the heightened level of collaboration will undermine the justification for an independent environmental movement. Why pay dues to a green group if its agenda is virtually identical to that of GE and DuPont? Already there are hints that business views itself, not activist groups, as the real green vanguard. Chevron, for instance, has been running a series of environmental ads with the tagline "Will you join us?"

Join them? Wasn't it Chevron and the other oil giants that played a major role in creating global warming? Wasn't it Chevron that used the repressive regime in Nigeria to protect its environmentally destructive operations in the Niger Delta? Wasn't it Chevron's Texaco unit that dumped more than 18 million gallons of toxic waste in Ecuador? And wasn't it Chevron that was accused of systematically underpaying royalties to the federal government for natural gas extracted from the Gulf of Mexico? That is not the kind of track record that confers the mantle of environmental leadership. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/53113/?page=1

[gravity]

1. If there is money in saving the earth, then big business will capitalize on it

Some of it is just greenwash, but companies like GE will also provide capital needed to implement the environmentally friendlier technologies which environmental groups demand.

Even oil companies are investing in alternative energies to hedge their bets in the future.

Big businesses don't care about the earth one way or another, they focus on profits and follow the money.

[YankeyMCC]

2. It's just a combination of profiteering and trying to reduce uncertainty

I'm sure there are individuals within some of these large business management teams that are sincere but overall it's just a matter of the corporate profit drive...doesn't matter if it's war or suffering or providing an actual useful service if there's a way to make a profit that is what a corporation is designed to seek out.

Also, business leaders are getting nervous that governments will start taking action and they want to control that process as much as possible.