Green Corporate partnerships - are they an essential tool in achieving the conservationist mission, or just a ruse for covering up ecological crimes?

The Debate - Correspondence between Mark Rose, Chief Executive of Fauna & Flora International (FFI), and Marcus Colchester, Director of Forest Peoples Programme

Published in The Ecologist, July/August 2004

Dear Marcus,

Perhaps the single most influential group when it comes to determining the future of our planet is the corporate sector. The land area under corporate management is vast. The extent to which people depend on businesses for their incomes and livelihoods is overwhelming. Single companies are wealthier than entire groups of governments. The activities and attitudes of business are of fundamental importance in determining the viability and sustainability of the environment in which we all live and on which we all depend.

There is a wide array of ways in which civil society and NGOs can engage with and influence the private sector, and each of these approaches has its own role and value. Exposés can reveal malpractice, and lobbying can change behaviour. From a business perspective, the relationships companies form in response to such actions are important in terms of managing risk and improving reputation; they can also help achieve the public good sought by the NGOs.

Accepting corporate funding and sponsorship is also a perfectly legitimate activity, and ensures the viability of hundreds of thousands of valuable projects around the world. However, care must be taken to ensure that mutual branding is not used as implied endorsement beyond specific projects.

But none of these approaches should be confused with partnership. Partnership involves two or more groups who may have very different views and resources agreeing on common aims, which, if achieved, will deliver benefits to all.

Effective partnerships set clear objectives and ground rules. Honest partnerships recognise the right to disagree. Efficient partnerships use the strengths of each partner to build the capacity of everyone involved. Strategic partnerships focus on the long term.

It seems to me that if we genuinely want to find lasting solutions to some of the most urgent issues facing our global environment, then translating conservation priorities into value-adding and sustainable business practices is crucial. Smart partnerships with corporations are an essential tool in achieving the conservationist mission. Indeed, we could be regarded as negligent if we failed to engage with business.

 

Dear Mark,

Everyone has the right and the responsibility to be concerned about the environment. If, as we seem to agree, corporations now constitute the main threat to global ecosystems, we certainly cannot afford to ignore them. A first step to dealing with corporations must be to understand their role in environmental destruction; then, as conservationists, we should go about exposing those problems to the general public.

Combined pressure from impacted peoples and communities, citizens, NGOs and even governments can make for change. We need to demand better regulation of runaway industries and encourage companies themselves to reform their ways.

Yes, this may mean talking to companies directly, across the picket line and in the boardroom. But engaging in dialogues and partnerships with the companies that are currently trashing the planet has to be done carefully if it is not to be counterproductive.

In the first place, such dialogues and partnerships must be carried out in ways that don’t exclude those whose rights and livelihoods are directly impacted by negative corporate activity. Second, we mustn’t let companies use partnerships to ‘greenwash’ their overall operations: the planet won’t survive if we trade off funding for a few nice projects and national parks for condoning sacrifice zones and unsustainable development elsewhere. And third, partnership should be conditional on companies agreeing to certain standards and norms: respecting international human rights and environmental laws would be a good place to start; an embargo on destructive projects in protected areas would be another.

You say there should be ‘no mutual branding’, but the Fauna and Flora International (FFI) centenary celebration in First magazine (the self-styled ‘forum for decision-makers’) did just that. There you lavishly offered a glossy, green profile to corporate juggernauts like BP, Vodafone, British American Tobacco (BAT), ExxonMobil and Rio Tinto. Giving such companies positive spin and not exposing their tragic records of environmental ruin is giving ‘conservation’ the bad name that, sadly, it increasingly deserves.

Dear Marcus,

Much of the focus of conservation organisations during the 20th century was on ‘protection’, but the real challenge for the future lies in developing a sustainable relationship between people and the environment. The range of stakeholders involved in this task encompasses the entire global, social spectrum – including indigenous peoples. Conservation must become fully integrated into social, political and economic processes, not isolated in a ‘box’. Failure to achieve these goals will result in the continued erosion of the natural resources on which we all depend.

You refer to protected areas, though (somewhat contradictorily) you downgrade their importance while also prioritising their integrity. Let me re-emphasise the value of different approaches here. While pressure groups may focus on keeping companies out of protected areas, partnership NGOs work with companies to address their operational impact across their geographic footprint – not just within the small percentage of the earth’s surface designated as protected. We need both strategies.

Working with leadership companies that can influence their sectors is strategically wise: these companies are key players in developing the very standards you say you want to see in place. And remember that companies that are committed to social and environmental reporting, which endeavour to build partnerships with NGOs and civil society, and which develop and implement improved practices, are actually just the tip of the corporate iceberg. They are the recognisable names above the waterline. If, due to public pressure, the BPs and Rio Tintos pull out rather than work through issues and set new standards, they may be swiftly replaced by companies that are far less accountable and have no public reputation to lose.

Just a few years ago, conservation issues never reached the boardroom agenda, unless a short-term, emergency response was needed. Environmental policies were about retrospective crisis management, only undertaken when matters came to a head and damage had been done. We recognised the need for an alternative.

Today, as you note with reference to First, FFI and other partnership-focused organisations have secured the commitment of influential companies to recognising conservation as a core business issue to be mainstreamed into strategy and operations. Through partnership, we can move from remedy to prevention.

Dear Mark,

You are dodging the question. Are conservationists’ partnerships with large corporations ‘greenwash’? In my view, your glossy, centenary fundraiser in First is exactly that. It says nothing about the environmental crimes of corporations, but makes destructive businesses out to be green leaders and links them to FFI. You are no more explicit elsewhere. We looked in vain at your website and magazine, Oryx, for details about these companies’ operations.

What have you done to expose Rio Tinto for its part in the destruction of the lands and culture of the Amungme people in West Papua? Have you told it not to profile you as a ‘partner’ on its website until it stops pouring tailings from West Papua’s Grasberg mine into the rivers and forests that sustain the Kamoro people downstream?

Where have you highlighted the role of ExxonMobil in the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline, which has smashed through the forests of the Bagyeli Pygmies in southwest Cameroon? Have you noted that the company dismisses the problem of global warming and openly campaigns against emissions reduction targets?

How come I can’t find anything on your website about the pressure from BP to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration and the threats that would pose to the calving grounds of local porcupine caribou? What have you done to stop BP parading its association with FFI on its own website, while the same company has been pushing through the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline across the Caucasus?

Where are your studies of the deforestation caused by the fuel-wood consumption of the tobacco curers that supply BAT, a company implicated in the 750,000 tobacco-related deaths that the world suffers every year?

Are you working with Nigeria’s Ogoni people to stop your ‘partner’ Shell making yet more mess in the Niger Delta?

Profiling these companies’ environmental credentials without exposing the problems they cause is what I call greenwash.

Dear Marcus,

You are missing the point. It’s time for a reality check.

The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline route was partly chosen to stop the environmental risk of a major increase in tankers through the Bosphorus. Multiple governments are planning their national economies around this venture, and public demand is driving it. Don't kid yourself: neither the Forest Peoples Programme nor any other pressure group can stop it. Neither can we.

What we can do, however, is work with BP (which, thanks to NGO partnerships, has a corporate biodiversity strategy that will be implemented across the project) to minimise the pipeline’s negative impact. Force BP out, and you won’t stop the pipeline, you’ll just get someone else, less accountable taking its place.

You don’t believe me? To bring you up to date on Grasberg, Rio Tinto has just sold its equity share in the mine – partly due to constant pressure from environmental groups. But the mine hasn’t been and won’t be closed. Do you consider this a success? Even if you’ve now lost the one point of leverage that was making a difference? Who does this help more – the Kamoro people or the public profile of lobbyists?

Where are our studies of deforestation caused by fuel-wood consumption for tobacco curing? Well, they’re being conducted in association with Uganda’s Makerere University. As part of our partnership with BAT, blocks of forest degraded while under government ‘stewardship’ are being given stronger protection. And, by diversifying plantations, we are growing native tree species with better social and ecological value. Greenwash? Not by my definition.

It is because business has a major environmental impact that we have a dialogue with it. Recognising and trying to address that is the point of partnership.

Dear Mark,

Condoning BP’s strategy in exchange for token mitigations seems like a bad deal to me. Nor have I seen good evidence of Rio Tinto improving things in West Papua. Besides, even though Rio Tinto sold its 12 per cent share in mining firm Freeport McMoRan, it still retains its 40 per cent interest in the Grasberg mine expansion. A reality check certainly is needed.

The world I live in is suffering the highest rates of habitat loss and ecosystem degradation for 65 million years, a corresponding mass erosion of biodiversity, and the destruction of more sustainable forms of human societies. This is caused by exponential increases in consumption and the concentration of power in the hands of trans-national corporations.

The same corporations spend billions of dollars a year on advertising to persuade people their happiness depends on buying more of their products. And, just in case any of these consumers get worried that their materialist lifestyles are contributing to global destruction, they also spend a few millions window-dressing their activities to show that they are greener than the other guys. Don’t kid yourself: business is more worried about promoting a better ‘investment climate’ than addressing actual climate change, more concerned to shape its ‘operating environment’ than with caring for the natural environment.

Your approach seems to be ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’. You assume we have already lost. You also argue that it’s better the devil you know. The trouble with such Faustian pacts is that they tend to cost more than was originally bargained for. The political and environmental costs of legitimising corporate unsustainability are trashed ecosystems, exploited peoples, disempowered voices of protest and entrenched corporate hegemony.

Voices of protest need your support, not dismissal for being unrealistic. A realistic response to corporate domination would be to make business accountable for its impact. The longer conservation organisations choose to be part of the business-dominated establishment, rather than identified with the forces for social and political protest and reform, the less hope we have for an environmentally secure future.

Dear Marcus,

I fundamentally disagree with your last sentence. We need to engage more, not less, with both corporates and consumers for there to be any real change. Conservation needs to be integrated into corporate policy and business practice for us to achieve an environmentally secure future.

I don’t decry your approach. As I keep saying, lobbying has a role; of course it does. But do you genuinely believe that the spectrum of effort across the environmental movement should be reduced to the single route of protest?

It is simply not the case that your way is exclusively, morally right and that everyone else’s is evil and wrong. Don’t dismiss what you don’t like or understand just because that reflects better on your more popularly accepted method. It is a great pity that your perspective creates schisms rather than solidarity in the NGO sector.

Of course greenwash occurs, but ultimately it is in nobody’s interests: it will damage NGOs’ reputations, alienate their supporters, make other companies less likely to work with them and, most importantly, undermine their work.

FFI has chosen a hard route. Building genuine corporate partnerships is complex and time-consuming. It involves a process of understanding perspectives and drivers, agreeing aims and ground rules, developing methods and management, measuring delivery and impact. We offer an extended hand to those willing to look hard at their own practices and commit to change. If we can get these partnerships right, then they may be among the most important means available for delivering sustainable change.

I believe that you and I have shared motivations: a profound and grave concern for the future of our planet, and a recognition of the power and influence of the private sector. We all have roles to play, so let’s get on with it.

Dear Mark

Your misrepresent my position to cover up the weaknesses of your own. The point is not whether we should dialogue with corporations, but how we can do so without giving them green cover behind which they can hide their ecological crimes and so avoid real change. You admit that greenwash occurs, thus conceding the issue we were asked to debate.

What I have argued for is a more principled approach, which requires: the direct involvement of impacted communities and peoples; transparent audits of the real impact of corporate activity; solidarity with, not scorn for, those who protest; and up-front commitments from corporations to adopt real, binding standards – especially to respect human rights and protected areas.

Other conservation organisations have already learned these lessons. For example, when the secretariat of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) announced its ‘partnership’ with the mining industry at the World Summit on Sustainable Development [in 2002] many IUCN members were outraged. The mining companies were being offered green credentials without having to make any commitments to change.

The IUCN secretariat had to back-peddle. First, it renamed the partnership process a ‘dialogue’. Then it ruled that further dialogue would be conditional on the mining industry committing itself to dealing with the damage caused by past and current mines, and to working with indigenous peoples. This is good news, but more needs to be done to stop ‘greenwash’.

It remains to be seen whether the large conservation organisations – many of them, like FFI, members of IUCN – will adopt a similarly principled approach to dialogues and partnerships with corporations. In my view, they cannot afford to do otherwise.