Issue 108 - Corporate Greenwash Allows business-as-usual

corporate greenwash allows business-as-usual

Trade liberalization has winners and losers - and the winners include transnational corporations scouring the globe for new markets, weak competitors, cheap resources and lower operating costs. These companies have privileged access to and influence upon governments and trade negotiators, enabling them to make and break the rules of the global economy to suit their commercial interests. All of this often comes at the expense of communities, local economies and the environment.

Corporate power has greatly increased in the past decades, and companies have managed to slip away from attempts to regulate their behavior. They have successfully coopted the concept of “sustainable development” while at the same time expanding their unsustainable practices in the agricultural, water, mining, energy, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and transport sectors. They have triumphantly promoted the idea of ‘voluntary initiatives' while continuing to pollute, exploit and degrade environments around the planet.  

In recent years, the most influential corporations have managed to worm their way into various poverty-related initiatives, including some in alliance with the United Nations environment, labor and human rights agencies. These are some of the very corporations – Nike, Shell, Rio Tinto, Novartis, BP, Daimler Chrysler, Bayer DuPont, McDonald's, Disney, Chevron, Unocal – that are contributing to poverty around the world through their exploitative activities.

Corporations have enthusiatically embraced opportunities to show off their newfound ‘Corporate Social Responsibility' in highprofile initiatives such as the ‘Global Compact' between the United Nations and industry to promote human rights and reduce poverty. However, these ventures are often part of a public relations strategy that masks the less commendable activities of involved companies. In the end, corporate activities, both social and antisocial, are driven by the need to bring in profits.