Greenwash & Public Relations

At the occassion of the start of PrepCom IV (Bali, 27 May -- 7 June 2002) we herewith send you the Girona Declaration. The Bali event is last preparatory conference before the UN's World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Rio+10. The declaration -- signed by over 30 groups from around the world -- is a result of the strategy session ''Rio+10 and Beyond: Strategies Against the Greenwash of Corporate Globalisation'', held March 18-20 2002 in Girona, Spain. Read More

BOSTON -- In a letter sent to Bill and Melinda Gates today, the national corporate accountability organization Infact urged the couple to help end Philip Morris's involvement in the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). Today, the Gates Foundation is announcing the launch of the new alliance, which includes Kraft Foods as well as UN agencies, to increase access to nutrient-fortified foods in developing countries. Kraft is a subsidiary of Philip Morris, the world's largest and most profitable tobacco corporation. The tobacco giant has been exposed for using its Kraft Foods division in efforts to undermine the World Health Organization-initiated Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a global treaty. Infact is one of dozens of NGOs around the world working to ensure a strong and enforceable FCTC. Read More

The California Supreme Court delivered a stiff warning to businesses Thursday, ruling that a San Francisco man can sue Nike Inc. for false advertising for allegedly lying about working conditions at Asian factories where its athletic shoes and clothes are made. Read More

Is fabric made from corn an eco-friendly wonder product or just more greenwash? Read More

UNITED NATIONS -- Leaders of international environment and development NGO coalitions today challenged governments' indecision in failing to protect the political accomplishments of the 1992 Earth Summit. And they attacked several Northern governments for attempting to undermine the carefully-structured consensus of Rio. Read More

In a perfect world, a list like this would not exist. In a perfect world, businesses would be run with the utmost integrity and competence. But ours is, alas, an imperfect world, and if we must live in one where Enron, Geraldo Rivera, and Cottonelle Fresh Rollwipes exist, the least we can do is catalog the absurdities. Read More

By the end of the year, Starbucks will increase its ever-growing empire by opening a coffee shop in Mexico City -- the first Starbucks in Latin America. Ironically, Starbucks will soon be selling gourmet coffee to the very people who are under-paid for harvesting coffee beans. News of the Mexico City shop came as Starbucks was presenting its first Corporate Social Responsibility report at its annual shareholders' meeting in Seattle last month. The report emphasized the company's claimed commitment to doing business in socially, economically and environmentally responsible ways, to benefit the communities around the world where it does business. Read More

Even as world leaders kicked off discussions on how to alleviate poverty a theme anti-globalization activists have pushed for years a motley crew of corn farmers, masked students and rebel supporters took to the streets denouncing the gathering as more of the same. Read More

Tobacco giant Philip Morris is undergoing a PR makeover. This Greenwash Award says the public won't be fooled. Read More

In a January 29 letter the Alliance for a Corporate-Free UN documented several human rights violations and environmental abuses by companies signed on to the UN's Global Compact. Corporations that join the compact are supposed to voluntarily adhere to a series of human right and environmental principles. Instead of addressing the charges of rights violations, UN officials accused CorpWatch and the Alliance of being ''misinformed.'' In the correspondence, CorpWatch disputes the Global Compact Office's assertions point by point. Read More