don’t let big business
rule the world
Friends of the Earth International
launches global campaign for Earth
Summit
Bali/Amsterdam; June 1st 2002
Friends of the Earth International (FOEI)
today launches a campaign for new global
rules for business to be signed up to at the
Earth Summit, in Johannesburg this August
[1]. Under the slogan “Don´t let big business
rule the world”, FOEI is collecting demands
to world leaders from individuals around the
world, to be delivered to the Summit.
The campaign is launched as government
ministers from around the world meet in Bali,
Indonesia, for the final preparatory meeting
for the Earth Summit. Friends of the Earth
groups around the world will be staging
actions in Bali, followed by actions in
Germany, Spain, Australia, Norway and
Britain. And all of the messages from
individuals will be represented at the Summit
by small figures, designed by South African
artists, which will form part of giant
sculpture on display during the Earth
Summit.
Ricardo Navarro, Chair of Friends of the
Earth International said:
“Friends of the Earth International is the
largest network of grassroots environmental
organisations in the world, with more than 1
million members. We will use this strength to
ensure that grassroots voices are heard at
the Earth Summit. Our global campaign will
show that citizens all over the world expect
governments to bring economic globalisation
under control. People do not want a world run
by and for big business.”
FOEI will also be collecting messages via
community radio(2), the internet (3)
postcards (4) and through local events around
the world.
Notes:
(1) A briefing with full details of Friends
of the Earth International’s call for global
rules for big business is available below.
More details from Friends of the Earth
International’s website at
www.foei.org/publications/corporates/accountability.html
(2) Radio Earth Summit” will be working with
community radio all over the world and will
bring testimonies and sounds to FOEI´s major
art installation in Johannesburg. Contact:
Mike Childs + 44 20 7490 0237
(3) Messages can be sent at
http://www.rio-plus-10.org/en/action.php?a=a1&lang=en
(4) A huge postcard will be on display on
1st June in Madrid, Spain. Hundreds of
postcards will be collected at an action in
Berlin.
Contacts:
In Bali: Daniel Mittler, Campaign
Coordinator, +49 173 923 4747
In London: Mike Childs + 44 20 7490 0237
In Berlin: Marc Engelhardt, +49 171 48 70
891
In Madrid: Sandy Hemingway, +34 91 306
9900
In Melbourne: Cam Walker +61 39 419 8700
In Oslo: John Haugen, +47 22 364 218
Media Briefing
Global Rights for People Global Rules
for Big Business
Why new rules for binding corporate
accountability must be agreed at the
Johannesburg Earth Summit:
Introduction In the last 30 years, up to
one third of the natural world has been
destroyed [1]. This is a direct result of
humans’ uncontrolled consumption of natural
resources. Over that same period there has
been an unprecedented and massive increase in
the wealth and power of the world’s
multinational corporations.
For example:
-
Five hundred companies now control
almost two thirds of world trade [2].
-
If listed in an economic league table
alongside countries, more than half of the
top 100 world economies are multinational
corporations [3].
-
The world’s five largest companies
together generate annual sales greater
than the combined incomes of the
forty-six poorest countries in the world
[4].
Multinationals have gained such wealth and
power over the last 30 years because
governments have systematically removed
barriers to trade, while failing to balance
these new market opportunities with global
rules to prevent that exploitation of the
environment and local communities. This
potent cocktail of greater power and weaker
regulation is contributing to growing levels
of environmental damage:
-
-
Half of the world’s forests have now
been completely destroyed [5].
-
Half of the worlds rivers are seriously
depleted and polluted [6]
-
Over a third of the world’s fish stocks
are either depleted or over-exploited
[7].
Such levels of consumption have
contributed to a growing gap between rich and
poor. Two thirds of the world’s population
now survive on less than two US dollars a
day.
Some multinationals have offered to follow
voluntary guidelines. These guidelines are
often weak, un-enforced and ignored. And many
companies claiming to follow them still put
profits before people and the
environment.
Friends of the Earth International (FOEI)
believes the only way to stop multinationals
from being destructive is to set up an
international, legally binding agreement
which provides global rights for people and
global rules for big business. That is why
FOEI is proposing that world leaders sign up
to a corporate accountability convention at
the Earth Summit in Johannesburg in 2002.
WHAT HAPPENED AT RIO?
At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, two
mechanisms for controlling business - the UN
Centre on Trans-national Corporations (TNCs)
and the UN Code on TNCs - were abandoned.
Since Rio, the power of corporations has
grown dramatically – unchecked by any legally
binding framework or regulations.
This regulatory shortcoming has been
recognised :
-
The UN Development Programme concluded
in its Human Development Report 1999 that:
“...multinational corporations are too
important and too dominant a part of the
global economy for voluntary codes to be
enough. …They need to be brought within the
frame of global governance, not just the
patchwork of national laws, rules and
regulations.”
-
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said
“…we cannot leave companies to regulate
themselves globally, any more than we do
in our national economies” [8].
THE FAILURE OF THE VOLUNTARY APPROACH:
UNEP’s report in May 2002, setting out the
state of the world’s environment, warns that
“the planet is at a crucial cross-roads”.
According to Klaus Toepfer, Executive
Director of UNEP “We need concrete actions,
we need concrete timetables and we need an
iron will from all sides” [9].
Business associations often like to argue
that action is best delivered through
voluntary initiatives, a plethora of which
have come into existence since Rio. But
another UNEP report concludes that “there is
a growing gap between the efforts of business
and industry to reduce their impact on the
environment and the worsening state of the
planet”. This gap, say UNEP, “is due to the
fact that in most industry sectors, only a
small number of companies are actively
striving for sustainability”. At the report
launch, Mr. Toepfer noted that “the majority
of companies are still doing business as
usual” [10].
In the UK, the voluntary approach has
failed. In October 2000, in a keynote address
to the CBI, Prime Minister Tony Blair told
business leaders:
“I am issuing a challenge, today, to all of
the top 350 companies to be publishing annual
environmental reports by the end of 2001".
[11]
But more than three-quarters of the top
British businesses completely ignored Blair's
'challenge'. Government figures indicate that
only 79 of the top 350 companies (23 per
cent) produced substantive reports on their
environmental performance by the deadline,
and that only 24 (7 per cent) of the other
companies in the FTSE 350 had indicated their
intention to do so. Ten per cent of the
remaining top 350 companies mentioned the
environment in their annual reports, but in
many cases it was given only a few short
paragraphs [12].
TAKE THESE CORPORATE EXAMPLES:
Oil giant Exxon Mobil, known as Esso in the
UK, is one of the major players in the fossil
fuel lobby, which has played a large part in
preventing international action on global
warming. Esso stands accused of using its
money and influence to derail international
negotiations on action to save the climate.
Lobbying by Exxon was largely responsible for
the US decision to pull out of the Kyoto
Protocol, the only international treaty
designed to stop global warming. Even jaded
corporate analysts were shocked by
revelations that Exxon had sent a memo to the
White House calling for the world’s top
climate scientist to be ousted as chair of
the International Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), the body set up to monitor the
impacts of global warming. And Robert Watson
was indeed ousted in April 2002.
Premier Oil, the British oil company, is
infamous for doing business with the Burmese
military regime, which has committed serious
human rights violations. It was the first oil
company to sign a deal with Burma’s military
for the exploration of the Yetagun offshore
gas field in May 1990. It is estimated that
the field will produce gas for at least the
next 20 years, generating US$825 million for
the Burmese state.
Premier Oil also operates in Kirthar
National Park in Pakistan. When Premier Oil
was submitting plans for exploration it was
still illegal to undertake any industrial
activities in the park. However the law has
now been changed by the military regime in
Premier Oil’s favour to make gas extraction
legal. The park is home to numerous
threatened species such as the unique Sindh
Ibex, (a mountain goat), Urial sheep, desert
wolves, striped hyena and golden jackal. It
is an essential source of water for the 14
million people living in nearby Karachi.
Bayer, which sells pesticides, and the
biotech company Aventis have a poor track
record on environmental and consumer safety.
Last year Bayer, a German-based agro-chemical
and pharmaceutical company, announced its
intention to buy Aventis Crop Science to form
Bayer Crop Science. The deal, subject to EC
approval, is likely to be completed in
2002.
In the UK, Aventis’ GM crops being tested
in farm-scale trials, have been found by
Friends of the Earth to spread pollen far
beyond the field boundary. Aventis claims a
50-metre separation distance of 50 metres
prevents cross pollination, but Canadian
evidence shows that oilseed rape crops can be
contaminated at more than four km. Honey
produced near Aventis sites in the UK has
been found to contain GM pollen.
Aventis’ business strategy on GM crops
involves linking the seed sales to the
“Liberty” herbicide which crops are resistant
to - so guaranteeing a market for the
herbicide. Friends of the Earth is concerned
about the safety of the herbicide.
FOEI’s PROPOSAL FOR A CORPORATE
ACCOUNTABILITY TREATY:
FOEI believes that corporations could
represent a creative, economic force that
will help to deliver sustainable development.
But this will only happen if the rights that
companies already have (eg trading and access
to markets) are balanced with the rights that
communities should have (eg a clean and
healthy environment and a livelihood). This
can only be done through a legally binding
international framework., which applies to
all publicly traded companies. We have put
together detailed proposals which would:
-
-
place duties on companies and
directors, such as a duty to take social
and environment matters into their decision
making, a duty to ensure effective prior
consultation with affected communities, and
a duty to report fully on social and
environmental impacts.
-
guarantee rights for citizens and
communities, such as the right to a clean
and healthy environment, and the right of
redress (eg compensation) when corporations
cause social and environmental damage.
-
establish high standards of social,
environmental, labour and human rights
behaviour by corporations.
The treaty would also establish sanctions
or penalties for when corporations do not
come up to scratch. These might include
fines, withholding access for such companies
to public subsidies, guarantees or loans, and
in extreme cases, suspending national stock
exchange listings and withdrawing limited
liability status. Full details of our
proposal are available at:
www.foei.org/publications/corporates/accountability.html
THE BUSINESS CASE FOR CORPORATE
ACCOUNTABILITY:
It is now very hard to find any large
companies that would not claim to be striving
to reduce their environmental impact.
Those that are sincere about
sustainability have nothing to fear from our
proposals, and everything to gain. They will
surely welcome action being taken against
those competitors who are not concerned about
their social and environmental impacts. But
our experience shows many corporations are
really engaged in “greenwash” (ie PR
exercises designed to boost their green
image, without any change to their core
activities).
The political failure to force these
corporations to improve their operations,
effectively rewards bad corporate behaviour
and penalises good corporate behaviour.
TIME FOR ACTION AT THE JOHANNESBURG EARTH
SUMMIT:
The Earth Summit (World Summit on
Sustainable Development) is the largest
meeting on the international political
agenda, and is convened by the United
Nations. It brings together tens of thousands
of participants, including heads of State and
Government, representatives from
non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
businesses and others to direct action
towards improving people's lives and
conserving our natural resources [13].
UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is expected
to attend, and he is likely to be joined by
cabinet ministers including Margaret Becket
and John Prescott. Friends of the Earth
welcomes the high-level political commitment
that the UK Government is showing to the
Earth Summit.
But Friends of the Earth, and many other
NGOs, are worried that the only thing to come
out of Johannesburg will be a long list of
voluntary initiatives that fail to bind
countries or corporations into concrete
action. This will be a huge waste of effort.
We believe the UK has a crucial role to play
in making sure concrete achievements are won,
and that the US (in particular) does not
paralyse the world into inaction.
The power and influence of large
corporations is already very significant, and
this will be increased by measures taken by
other bodies, such as the WTO. It is crucial
that agreement is reached at the Earth Summit
to balance this shift with a framework that
will force big business to act in the
interests of sustainable development.
Notes:
[1] WWF “The Living Planet Index” 2000
[2] UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on
Trade and Development World Investment Report
1995
[3] Anderson, S, J. Cavanagh and Thea Lee.
Field Guide to the Global Economy. The New
Press: New York.
[4] ibid.
[5] World Resources Institute –
www.wri.org
[6] “The State of the Environment: Past,
Present, Future?”, UNEP 2002. See
www.unep.org
[7] “The State of the Environment: Past,
Present, Future?”, UNEP 2002.
[8] “Local Questions, Global Answers”
speech, 10/09/01.
[9] “The State of the Environment: Past,
Present, Future?” UNEP 2002.
[10] “Industry and Environment –
Achievements, Unfinished Business and Future
Challenges” -UNEP 15/5/02. See
www.unep.org
[11] “Richer and Greener” - Speech by The
Prime Minister, to CBI / Green Alliance
Conference, 24/10/00
[12] House of Lords written answers, 4th
December 2001. Col. WA132
[13] More information on the Johannesburg
Earth Summit and the Bali Prepcomm is
available at:
http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/
Contacts:
In London Craig Bennett Tel: 020 7566 1667
Email:
craigb@foe.co.uk
Press Office Tel: 020 7566 1649 A Earth
Summit prepcomm IV in Bali Matt Phillips Tel:
+ 44 7810 558 246 Ed Matthew Tel: + 44 07810
558249
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