The New Danger of Greehushing

A great article about why you should tell the world about your green efforts . . .

Greenhushing Doesn't Help Anyone: Why Green Business Should Speak Up

Greenwashing is the corporate image version of money laundering − a way to maintain the status quo under a shiny thin veneer of change. One of greenwashing's negative effects is that it dissuades genuinely green companies from promoting their own far more substantial green practices. Companies that are authentically doing good stay silent, for fear that they'll be tarred with the same brush as those who are carrying on with business as usual. We hereby christen this unfortunate phenomenon "greenhushing." Although its intent is admirable, its effect is almost as negative as greenwashing. Here's why:

To read the rest of the article . . .
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Is green business doing enough?

Here's an interesting interview with Joel Makower that explores the new report on “The State of Green Business 2008” is just out from GreenBiz.com.

here's some of the questions they ask Joel.

Click the link to read the whole article . . .

http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi?sfArticleId=2462

Bill Baue: The report seems to reach two seemingly contradictory conclusions: pessimistic optimism or, more precisely, optimistic realism. On the one hand, you say that green business has passed the tipping point on many indicators you consider, shifting from a movement to a market. On the other hand, the positive changes seem woefully inadequate to the crises that we face, like climate change and water scarcity. Say more about this tension between the positive growth of green business and the daunting task at hand.

Francesca Rheannon: The stock markets have been incredibly roiled lately. There are fears of a recession, perhaps even of a depression. Could this throw a monkey wrench into the kind of positive developments you're talking about?

BB: You say that "while carbon intensity represents improvement of sorts, it also obscures the fact that overall carbon emissions need to decrease significantly, not grow more slowly, in order to avoid what a consensus of scientists predict will be the worst impacts of climate change. According to many scientists, greenhouse gas emissions need to decrease 80% by 2050. At current rates, the US will never get there." That is a really dire prediction. Can you talk about the problem that carbon intensity creates for creating environmental solutions?

BB: Describe the impetus behind creating the Green Index and what impact you intend on green business practices.

BB: Explain the rating system that you created: “swimming”, “treading water” and “sinking”. How did you come up with that rating system and what are the implications in terms of where we are right now and where we're heading?

BB: The report also includes what you consider the ten biggest stories from 2007. What are a few of the big stories to take away from 2007?

FR: There's the issue of green washing and green marketing. On your blog and podcast you covered the report, The Six Sins of Greenwashing, by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing. Could you discuss the tension between greenwashing and bona fide green marketing?

BB: Recently, Bob Langert of MacDonald’s posited a list of the “Six Sins of Greenmuting” — when companies choose not to communicate their green initiatives for fear of being accused of greenwashing. What are your thoughts about that?

BB: You mentioned Clorox earlier, and they just bought out Burt’s Bees. Can you talk about what Clorox is doing in greening their business?

BSR: Now Greenwashed!

just got an email from my friend kate holloway today:

I went to a huge dinner last night for Robert F. Kennedy. While the hosts was legit - the Toronto Region Conservation Authority - and the speaker was totally legit - Bobby Jr. is the real deal -- however it was drearily obvious that some of the event sponsors flashing on the ballroom screens, were just big corporate names that were simply greenwashing.

Read on, MacDuffs, anyway, read this gripping tale of our own Laury Hammel (co-founder of BALLE), from 2005 and learn a little more about how and why BALLE came to be. We don't want ever this to happen to BALLE Canada, and it won't, because what we're doing is the real deal.

//kmh

Published on Thursday, November 3, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Hijacked: Business for Social Responsibility
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman


We've just returned from the Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) conference being held here in Washington, D.C.

We picked up maybe five pounds of propaganda being handed out by the sponsors -- ExxonMobil, Chevron, AstraZeneca, Walt Disney, Pfizer, General Electric, Altria/Philip Morris (remember: altriameanstobacco.com), McDonald's, Edison International, Starbucks, Ford Motor Company, Coca-Cola, Abbott Labs, Microsoft, Monsanto, KPMG, Chiquita -- among others. The news -- what these giant multinationals don't want you to know -- is that they hijacked Business for Social Responsibility from its founders.

In 1991, the founders, a group of small businesses, wanted to counter the voices of the giant multinationals -- the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable -- in the public policy arena.

Enter Robert Dunn, stage right.

Dunn is now chairman of Business for Social Responsibility.

At the time, Dunn was a vice president at Levi Strauss, one of the large corporate members of the group.

Dunn said to his colleagues -- the only way we are going to change large multinational corporations is to bring them into this organization.

And the only way they will come into this organization is if we vow never to engage in the public policy arena.

Dunn said that the focus of the organization would be on changing big corporations from within.

Translation:

No talk about government regulation.

No talk about national health insurance.

No talk about a living wage.

No talk about war and peace.

No talk about law and order -- for corporate criminals.

In 1994, Monsanto, purveyor of genetically engineered foods, wanted into the group.

One member, Gary Hirschberg, chairman of Stoneyfield Farms, said -- wait a second.

Do we want a company that makes pesticides and herbicides and genetically engineered crops to be a member of a socially responsible business organization?

Yes, came back the answer -- how else are they going to get better?

Well what about tobacco companies?

How else are they going to get better?

What about oil and chemical companies?

How else are they going to get better?

What about nuclear companies?

What about military companies?

The reality is that Business for Social Responsibility has become a public relations organization for big corporations.

The only criteria for membership -- you have to be big and loaded.

The hijacking is now complete.

Laury Hammel knows what happened.

He was present at the creation.

Business for Social Responsibility was his idea in the late 1980s.

Hammel owns a string of health clubs in Boston.

Hammel wanted BSR to help business become more socially responsible, but also to engage in the public policy debate.

"We were sick and tired of having the Chamber of Commerce being the voice for business," Hammel said.

So, he started the group, and brought in such luminaries as Arnold Hiatt, former CEO of Stride Rite.

But at a board meeting of Business for Social Responsibility in 1993 in Cape Cod, there was a showdown between those who wanted the group to remain a voice in the public policy debate and those who wanted to stay out.

Dunn told the board that he would become president of BSR if the group stopped taking public policy positions.

"Dunn didn't want anything to do with influencing government policy," Hammel said. "Dunn believed that we would never change the world if we didn't get big corporations behind us. And we would never get them on board if we kept our foot in the public policy arena."

Hammel lost the battle with Dunn over allowing big corporations into the organization.

Dunn then asked Hammel to resign from the board.

Hammel refused.

So he was forced out.

"Dunn said he wasn't going to renominate me to the board because I didn't have money or stature -- I wasn't a big corporation," Hammel said.

Hammel is very fond of Arnold Hiatt, the former CEO of Stride-Rite, and a founding member of BSR.

Hiatt is still a member of the board of Business for Social Responsibility.

"He's an icon, one of my heroes," Hammel said. "But he's not in charge. It's Robert Dunn who is the driving force."

Hammel believes that Dunn's strategy of trying to change large corporations from within is bound to fail.

"Dunn has an incorrect analysis," Hammel said. "Take Wal-Mart for example."

Wal-Mart is a member of BSR.

"The only thing you can do to Wal-Mart is to do what they did with Standard Oil and take it apart," Hammel said. "There is an inherent flaw in the way they operate. When you make a change in Wal-Mart, you make a difference. But ultimately, you are going to fail because the business plan is flawed."

After being forced out of BSR, Hammel continued to organize local BSR chapters around the country.

Back then, the local chapters still had a voice in the national.

"But in 2000, the national BSR sent us a letter. There was no discussion. They just said -- we are eliminating all local chapters," Hammel said. "They told us that BSR was going to spend all of its time on big corporations."

Hammel has gone on help jump-start a new organization -- the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (www.livingeconomies.org).

The message -- buy local, buy independent.

"When I first formed BSR, I thought all businesses had the same interests in common," Hammel said. "Then I realized that big corporations didn't want to be with us. And we realized that our interests were different."

"The first allegiance of big public companies is to their stockholders," Hammel said. "Most of these big companies have to cater to the whims of the stockholders. That puts them in conflict with the consumer, community and the environment. Very few big companies can buck that stockholder dictatorship."

"Second is -- where do you live? Are you locally owned? If yes, then you are connected to the community," Hammel said. "Companies like Starbucks (a BSR member) are creating a homogenized culture. They are homogenizing cultures all over the world. We want to see locally owned coffee shops."

"We have done several studies showing that for every $100 spent at a local independent company -- $45 goes to the community," Hammel said. "If you spend the $100 at the corporate chain like Starbucks, only $13 goes to the community."

The last BSR conference that Hammel attended was in 2001 in Seattle.

This was 10 years after he founded BSR as his dream.

"I sat down at a table and noticed three guys with name tags that said Philip Morris and Company," Hammel said. "I asked these guys -- you are not with the cigarette company, are you? And they said -- 'yes, we are with the holding company.'"

"I said to myself -- these guys are members of BSR? They make products that kill people. What is this?"

That was the last conference he attended.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. Mokhiber and Weissman are co-authors of On the Rampage: Corporate Predators and the Destruction of Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press).