Greenwash & Public Relations

WASHINGTON (March 5, 2002) -- A dangerous killer who targets kids is on the loose, and he's got a new disguise. That's the premise of an animated ''e-movie'' that spoofs Philip Morris' proposed corporate name change to The Altria Group. The tobacco giant's shareholders will vote on the name change at their annual meeting April 25. Billed as ''the movie Philip Morris doesn't want you to see,'' the short animation was released today by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Read More

The Alliance for a Corporate-Free UN has raised questions about the partnerships between the United Nations and transnational corporations under the Global Compact since it was launched in the summer of 2000. Alliance members feel that the Global Compact Office has skirted the questions raised by numerous human rights and environmental abuses by companies which have signed onto the Compact. Read More

A Swedish businessman, whose multimillion-dollar pension came under fire, has lost his job as a spokesman for a U.N. program promoting ethical business practices Read More

The former chief executive officer of ABB, Goran Lindahl, will not be allowed to continue his prestigious post as special advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Lindahl was pressured to resign after a pension scandal at ABB. Read More

CorpWatch declared its support today for Secretary General Kofi Annan's decision not to renew a UN contract for scandal-ridden Swedish business leader Goran Lindahl. Mr. Lindahl, who was Mr. Annan's special advisor for the UN Global Compact, has been the subject of a pension scandal at Asea Brown and Boveri (ABB), where he was CEO until last year. Read More

The official UN Global Compact Office's response to the Alliance for a Corporate-Free UN's letter of January 29, 2002 is posted here. It is important to note two salient points: First, the "response" does not address the key issues raised in the international Alliance's letter, but rather changes the subject and focuses on criticizing CorpWatch staff and supposed ''inaccuracies'' in CorpWatch's recent ''Greenwash +10'' report. Second, the letter itself inaccurately portrays the positions and critiques contained in the CorpWatch report, labeling the Alliance's ongoing disagreement with the Global Compact's approach as a ''misunderstanding,'' and the wrong view. Read More

The latest victim of Enronitis may be ABB, the Zurich-based engineering giant whose founder and former CEO Percy Barnevik was once considered to be the Jack Welch of Europe. Beset by several quarters of disappointing performance, problems seem to be piling up at ABB amid investor fears of unrevealed woes at a company that had prided itself on using U.S.-style multinationalism and savage cost-cutting to become a model European business. Read More

Right till the end of January, Dita Sari was preparing to fly from her home near Jakarta to Salt Lake City to bask today in the admiration of assorted do-gooders and celebrities mustered by Reebok. The occasion is the 13th annual Human Rights Awards, overseen by a board that includes Jimmy Carter and Kerry Kennedy Cuomo. Read More

As global business and political players gather today in New York for the opening of the World Economic Forum, differences are beginning to emerge among nongovernmental organizations, multinational corporations and the United Nations over the future shape of the U.N. Global Compact and its role in regulating corporate behavior worldwide. Read More

Alliance for Corporate-Free UN writes letter to Kofi Annan about the Global Compact saying that the Compact as currently designed has serious flaws that threaten the integrity and mission of the United Nations, by partnering with multinational corporations. Read More