Greenpeace’s executive director blasts companies that go carbon neutral, PwC’s new sustainability team strikes gold while Chinese companies try to be whiter than white
Is greenwash out of control?
In a podcast interview with Ethical Corporation, Greenpeace executive director Gerd Leipold takes aim at companies that offset their emissions then proclaim themselves carbon neutral.
In the interview, Leipold says he thinks carbon offsetting is “misleading” and that tree-planting schemes mean “the potential for fraud is huge”. As readers will know, a cabal of companies, large and small, is busy proclaiming itself “carbon neutral”. Governments are concerned by how easily these firms can buy offsets that magic-away their environmental impacts, but can do little about it.
Leipold says sustainability reports by companies appear to indicate that they operate “in the garden of Eden”, with no connection to environmental reality.
He also says BP’s climate-change crown has slipped badly. The company now means “bigger petroleum, not beyond petroleum”, he says acidly.
Companies should be doing the same as Greenpeace, he says, in pointing out that right now the planet is moving further away, not closer, to real sustainability. The UK government, he concludes, is now “the world champion in climate rhetoric”. Harsh but true.
Drinks on the latest PwC partner
Professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers is ramping up its corporate sustainability offerings. Having drifted along for a few years, the outfit has now decided to make a real effort to build a big team, probably with a view to getting into that elusive, ultra-high-margin “strategy consulting” space dreamed of by many an MBA graduate.
So far the new, much bigger team includes able folk from the likes of BP and the Corporate Citizenship Company. And it doesn’t stop there. Headhunters are touting the top job, which comes complete with partnership in the company, at a cool £300,000 a year. Greenwasher’s image of tight-fisted accountants may soon be taking a beating. But if the big corporate clients roll in, it may be money well spent.
‘Foreign faces’ wanted in China
The hiring of white faces to front for Chinese companies is still alive and well. According to an email sent to the Shanghai expat community recently, “a friend is looking for a ‘foreigner with a foreign face’ to make a presentation for a design company”. This has been common practice in China for years, as companies often feel that, well, westerners prefer to deal with each other.
The email goes on to reassure prospective candidates, saying: “You need to know nothing about the company, just be able to go through a Powerpoint presentation in English without getting stage fright. A pleasant speaking voice a plus. Man or woman.”
One local wag commented: “I’m not sure the ‘transparency is improving in China’ crowd realise when they watch these presentations that they’ve just watched a penniless English teacher in action.”
Who is serious about sustainability?
Complaints about dodgy corporate greenwash are on the rise. Meanwhile, the same old examples of business sustainability “innovation” are touted at conferences time and again. So this month Greenwasher has delved into the contacts book to ask old-hands of responsible business what companies they think are interesting.
No, this is not a “best of” list, but the hot picks of a dozen respected specialists across business, finance and non-governmental organisations of those companies getting closer to integrating sustainability thinking into strategy.
Companies highlighted were: P&G, IAG Australia, Co-operative Financial Services, Unipart, BT, Novo Nordisk, Herman Miller, Natura, KfW Bankengruppe, Mohawk Fine Papers, Ecolab, Timberland, Nike and Innocent.
Make of it what you will. But whatever you do, don’t call it a ranking. See below for more …
Pointless CSR rankings: stakeholder input needed
As readers of EthicalCorp.com might know, this publication is rather uncomfortable with all these so-called rankings and ratings of the “most” and the “best” ethical companies, given the lack of consistent or credible methodologies out there to date. So it may be time to put together a list of, er, lists to encourage readers to think harder about whether these rankings add value.
As Peter Knight pointed out last month [“Letter from America: Rankings without reason”] in these pages, “there is something essentially dishonest about methodologies that attempt to be objective about measuring the subjective”.
Do Greenwasher readers agree? And if so, which are your picks of the most dodgy lists out there? Do let us know … greenwasher@ethicalcorp.com.