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30 august
2002
johannesburg
friends of the earth
international
corporate lobbyists exposed for history’s
greatest greenwash
August 30th, Johannesburg, South Africa --
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)
is pulling off the most outrageous greenwash
stunt in history, according to Friends of the
Earth International (FoEI) by presenting here
the ‘World Summit Business Awards for
Sustainable Development Partnerships’ [1] on
Aug 31.
“”The great irony is that the ICC is
presenting itself as a paragon of sustainable
development through giving out these awards.
This is the worst kind of greenwash, because
Governments and the public will be tempted to
assume the ICC is really working for
sustainability, when its record is far from
green,” said Ricardo Narvarro, Friends of the
Earth International Chair.
“Of course, everyone wants to support good
action from companies. But whether the
companies who receive them deserve
recognition or not, the ICC’s role undermines
the credibility of these awards and
represents the biggest attempt at
greenwashing ever mounted,” added
Navarro.
What is the ICC record?
• The ICC lobbied heavily against the
world’s major environmental treaties,
including the Kyoto Protocol, the
Biodiversity Convention and the Basel
Convention against trade in toxic waste, in
direct contradiction to the Global Compact's
Principles 7 (supporting a precautionary
approach to environmental challenges) and 8
(promoting greater environmental
responsibility);
• The ICC previously presented an award to
the Tokyo Electric Power Company for "taking
its fight against global climate change and
environmental degradation onto the world
stage". This involved Japan's largest nuclear
energy producer turning 3,000 hectares of
native forests on Tasmania into a eucalyptus
plantation in order to earn carbon credits
[2];
• The ICC resists the inclusion of binding
corporate accountability measures in the
Johannesburg Earth Summit, calling them
"one-size fits all" and "not workable.”
[3]
• The ICC pulled out of the UN’s
multistakeholder review of voluntary business
initiatives preferring that their resources
"be allocated to greater effect in other
current initiatives we are undertaking with
the United Nations”;
The ICC includes membership of Enron,
Monsanto, Exxon and a host of other
corporations not known for their leadership
on sustainability. Enron has been at the
heart of the US’s biggest corporate scandal
for a decade, Exxon is presently the subject
of an international boycott over its
opposition to the Kyoto Protocol and
Monsanto’s attempts to force GM products on
the world resulted in a massive public
reaction.
As an alternative to the ICC awards,
Friends of the Earth is part of the Greenwash
Academy which itself is presenting awards to
corporations which are greenwashing their bad
social and environmental practices [4]. FoEI
has exposed the real story of big business
bad practices around the World in its report
Clashes with Corporate Giants [5]
Friends of the Earth International is
calling on governments to introduce legally
binding international measures to secure
corporate accountability (including full
liability) based on rights for citizens and
communities.
Notes
[1] The ICC’s awards will be presented at
the Hilton Hotel in Johannesburg on 31
August. Details can be found at:
http://www.iccwbo.org/sdcharter/corp_init/awards/sd_award.asp
[2]
http://www.nfn.org.au/kyoto/cs7b.html
[3]
http://www.iccwbo.org/
[4]
www.earthsummit.biz
[5]
http://www.foei.org/publications/index.html
Contact in Johannesburg:
Ricardo Navarro, Friends of the Earth
Chair +27 72 4015392
Daniel Mittler, Friends of the Earth Summit
coordinator +27 72 4015394
David Waskow, Friends of the Earth
corporates specialist +27 82 8588586
Craig Bennett, Greenwash Academy specialist
+27 72 4064748
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