Corp. Understanding

[Voyageur]

Have a question concerning the corporation named Uniliever because this firm has become a backdoor partner within not only a very influential Environmental group in our area but also the town has started using their Logo on brochures for their environmental actions.

At first, with little knowledge of Unilever, I paid it scant attention, but it was not completely ignored either http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u/corpwatch?q=unilever&is=corpwatch.org&x=0&y=0 . Once acknowledged and upon reviewing the company’s history, this alignment seemed suddenly like a Red Flag that things are not what they seem. Why them, why this alignment, what’s in it for both parties and does the one Environmental party, let alone the town, understand the potential ramifications? Not sure if I’m being overly alarmist, maybe the firm is turning over a new leaf, the benevolent side is coming out or this is just Marketing 101, and that does make sense to a company that controls much of our global food & personal products movement, and is also alleged to be infiltrating third world countries and uprooting their base agriculture's to plant monocultures of GMO http://www.unilever.com/sustainability/consumer/gmos/index.aspx & this science source http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMPIIC.php , which they are on the record of supporting. Green Peace accused them of dumping Mercury in India http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=624 and other things were noted during this search.

There history seems not so pure either – see International Business and National War Interests - Unilever between Reich and Empire, 1939–45 by Ben Wubs

Stumbled across Sir Jonathon Porritt’s blog where he is swinging with Unilever http://www.jonathonporritt.com/pages/2008/05/greenpeace.html on the Palm Oil gig in a fight between Greenpeace vs. Unilever. Later, it seems that Greenpeace is cozying up, maybe under some conciliatory negotiations; quid pro quo?

Anyway, any thoughts or further information would be appreciated as the grass roots of our community may want to ask questions the others don’t want asked.

Thanks.

 

[Nienna]

Parallax, no, I do not think for one moment that this company has turned over a new leaf and is showing a beneficial side. They don't have one.

What it looks like to me is that this company has bought and paid for the environmental group/your community. They could have lied to these people that they are dealing with, but putting money out there is usually a very good incentive for people to jump on their boat.

At least that is how it looks to me.

 

[Voyageur]

Parallax, no, I do not think for one moment that this company has turned over a new leaf and is showing a beneficial side. They don't have one.

What it looks like to me is that this company has bought and paid for the environmental group/your community. They could have lied to these people that they are dealing with, but putting money out there is usually a very good incentive for people to jump on their boat.

At least that is how it looks to me.

Thanks Nienna Eluch, spent the morning studding the connections between Environmental Groups and Corporations and this has become much more apparent in the last decade as corporations vie for control over their market share.

There is much to read and most here understand the issues with corp. and their non being entity structure. The environmental aspect takes on many dimensions from what I can see, from greenwashing (front organizations) to embedding themselves within bodies and in this case the UN, and many many more.

On the surface and in this case, it is about water in our area (globally, too) and much needs to be done. However, the groups need financing and social and environmental Uniliver's come along and offer that hand. But at the same time guess who is on the "World Groups" for water issues;

"Defining the Water Footprint" - _http://post.nyssa.org/nyssa-news/2010/04/calculating-the-risks-of-impending-water-shortages.html

Water footprinting is in its infancy, and so far no clear global standards have emerged. The Water Footprinting Network, a multistakeholder alliance of NGOs, corporations, researchers, and supranational organizations, is spearheading efforts to establish a uniform set of water footprinting standards and to encourage enactment of regulations that will promote the sustainable and equitable use of water. Members include the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group and corporations in water-intense industries, including Unilever, Nestlé, PepsiCo, and the Coca-Cola Company.

Yes the big players need to be in on the ground floor of this – establishing global standards (to suite them).

Uniliver seems to be a very smart company as they have embedded themselves in the UN and NGO’s from A-Z. Will do some more work on this - but have found out one thing as discussed in the EM thread, and that is why there is a new EM broadcasting water meter in my house and those links go to Uniliver's Go Blue campaign which the started and fund, and which helps others to formulate government policy.

In their documentary, The Corporation, Canadian film-makers Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan note that corporations are legally and structurally bound to pursue profits at any cost:

"Self-interested, amoral, callous and deceitful, a corporation's operational principles make it anti-social. It breaches social and legal standards to get its way even while it mimics the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. It suffers no guilt. Diagnosis: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a psychopath." (www.thecorporation.tv)

THE INVISIBLE CORPORATE SHADOW - _http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/060914_the_invisible_corporate.php:

The notion of "corporate social responsibility" - endlessly promoted by big business, news media and even green groups - is a dangerous myth. But there are plenty of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which are actively involved in partnerships with corporations. One recent example is the Aldersgate group, which has coalesced around the issue of climate. Amazingly, the group sees the Green Alliance and even Friends of the Earth sitting cosily alongside business giants Tesco, Shell, Vodafone, Unilever and BAA. (Larry Elliott, 'Blue chips see the green light,' The Guardian, June 12, 2006)

Corporate Watch asks: "Why are NGOs getting involved in these partnerships?" One important factor is "follow the leader":
"For many NGOs, the debate on whether or not to engage with companies is already over. The attitude is 'all the major NGOs engage with companies so why shouldn't we?' While in many organisations internal debate continues, there is a sense that, right or wrong, engagement is the current tack so there is little point in questioning it." (Corporate Watch, op. cit., p. 23)
Sadly, NGOs rarely address the fundamentally destructive nature of corporations. In January 2002, we wrote to Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace UK. We recognised Greenpeace’s excellent campaigning and research but suggested there was a gaping hole at the heart of its work:

"The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." (Quoted, John Pilger, 'The New Rulers of the World,' Verso, 2001, p.114)