WHAT WE WORK ON

Corporate Accountability Holding corporations accountable - read more Counter Corporate Lobby Power Ending corporate privileges and secrecy around lobbying at the EU - read more Destructive Industries Exposing the negative impacts of the Extractive Industry in relation to poverty and the environment - read more Stop the Greenwash! Unmasking the misleading advertising companies use to portray themselves as green - read more

Economic actors, especially transnational companies, have a huge role to play in protecting, promoting and respecting human, social and environmental rights. Often having enormous influence over decision making in national states or in the EU, they are rarely held to account for the abuses they commit in damaging the environment, harming local communities and forcing workers to accept unfair conditions and/or salaries. It is time for companies to be responsible and accountable.

Rights for people, rules for big business
As corporations have proven incapable of regulating themselves, we are calling for binding legal frameworks that allow peoples' to protect themselves against corporate power. Such frameworks have to:

• Guarantee communities a legal right of redress for activities that adversely affect them, as well as rights to prior consultation.
• Guarantee individuals and communities rights over the resources they need to enjoy a healthy and sustainable life.
• Place a duty on directors of corporations to take account of social and environmental factors when taking business decisions
• Require corporations to meet best environmental, social, labour and human rights standards wherever they operate.

 

CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY Holding corporations accountable

A number of CSR guidelines are used by more and more companies today. The guidelines are however all voluntary initiatives and do not hold companies legally accountable towards the community in which they operate or include any sanction mechanisms (1). The Euroean Commission published a Communication on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in March 2006, but also fails to go beyond voluntary committments. The voluntary CSR initiatives have the potential to bring environmental and social responsibility into practice to some extent, but CSR-labelling is too often used as a pure marketing tool. This is what is called greenwash or bluewash.

Read more about Corporate Accountability and the EU debate on Corporate Social Responsibility.

 

COUNTER CORPORATE LOBBY POWER Ending corporate privileges and secrecy

Over 15.000 lobbyists (2) are roaming the corridors of the EU institutions, a large majority representing companies' interests and fighting hard to defend their agendas. Recent battles at the EU level, such as the REACH directive as well as the undermining of CSR proposals demonstrate the growing power of corporate lobbyists, whose influence over EU institutions and particularly the European Commission is escalating.

Corporate lobby groups are too often campaigning for narrow commercial interests, at the expense of the public interest. This undermines democracy and results in postponing, weakening or blocking urgently needed progress of EU social, environmental and consumer protections. As there is currently no system to secure lobbying transparency in the EU, the public as well as decision makers hardly know who is lobbying on what issues, on behalf of whom and how much money is being spent. Improved transparency around lobbying and ending privileged access (3) and influence of business groupings on EU policy-making are pre-conditions to ensuring corporate accountability.

Read more on the the need for Transparency

 

DESTRUCTIVE INDUSTRIES Exposing the negative impacts of the Extractive Industry

Many developing countries have large reserves of natural resources, such as oil, gas, coal, gold, copper and other mining products. This should contribute to the capacity of these countries to develop their economies: earn foreign exchange with the export of products from the extractive industry; create jobs through the exploration and trade of natural resources; invest these earnings in other sectors of the economy and thus stimulate other development opportunities.

Reality however reveals a very different picture. Decades of irresponsible oil, mining and gas exploration have produced devastating effects in many developing countries.

Gas flares in Nigeria, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and in many other places burn constantly, emitting thousands of tons of toxic emissions. This results in high levels of atmospheric pollution and damaged crops, as well as respiratory, skin, genetic and other serious ailments. 

Oil and gas pipeline construction in Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Chad, Georgia, Russia and Turkey damage the environment and exhaust scarce resources such as land, fishing grounds or forests that are critical for livelihood of local populations.  

Pipeline construction in the developing countries contributes to the increase of infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS and other social problems such as prostitution and human trafficking.

Oil refineries and oil depots in South Africa, Indonesia and the United States do not live up to environmental, health and safety standards.

Drilling (on- and offshore), platforms and artificial islands in the Niger River Delta, the Amazon River, Congo's rain forests, the Caspian Sea and the North Sea have damaging impacts on biodiversity. For example, the undersea pipeline from Sakhalin Island to its offshore terminal is endangering the world's last 100 or so western pacific grey whales.

Thousands of hectares of Canadian boreal forest are being cut down to allow for oil sands exploration in Alberta. The process of oil refining from oil sands produces almost 3 times more greenhouse gases (GHG) than conventional oil pumping.

Nonetheless, the International Financial Institutions continue to co-finance investments of the major oil firms in these countries. These subsidies call for strict environmental standards and are aimed at poverty reduction and development. Are the oil companies fulfilling these requirements?

The oil companies must also comply with international and local laws and standards, as well as their own codes of conduct. Are they?

Toxic waste, oil spills, leaking pipelines, water pollution and depletion, land contamination, permafrost damage, wildlife disturbance, deforestation, infectious diseases, damaged crops and farmlands, human rights abuses. These are just a few of many impacts of the extractive industry on the environment, poverty reduction and development. Is it then an Extractive or Destructive Industry?

Read more on the awareness raising campaign on the impacts of the extractive industry on development, poverty and the environment

 

STOP THE GREENWASH! Unmasking misleading advertising

In the wake of people's increasing certainty that climate change and other threats to the environment need to be addressed, many companies strive to remodel their image to blend in with the environmental consciousness of their customers.

The European public has become a target for public relations frenzies by big business. Especially oil companies such as Shell and ExxonMobil (Esso), whose businesses by their nature have large climate impacts, spend major sums on slick advertising campaigns instead of actually investing to clean up their act.

Read more on our campaign to expose this "Greenwash"

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1. Read more about the most used guidelines at www.unclobalcompact.org, www.oecd.org, www.ilo.org

2. 15 000 lobbyists currently work in Brussels, the EU capital, representing interests as diverse as wine industry, chemical production, the environment, agricultural affairs. Members of the Parliament, Commissioners, and civil servants are dealing with lobbyists on a daily base, who try to influence their political decisions. That's part of the democratic game and such practices are also common at the national level.
A lobbyist represents the interests of a particular group and is trying to influence public policy in its favour. Lobbying techniques include: direct contacts with public officials; monitoring of political and governmental activity; giving advice on political strategies and on new and existing policies.

3. Thousands of expert groups are helping the Commission and the Parliament to draft laws and take decisions. Names of members of these groups are rarely publicized, nor do we know whose interests they represent. Recent examples, such as the High Level Working Group on Cars and the Communication on Corporate Social Responsibility indicate that industry and business interests are represented in most of these advisory groups, whereas NGOs and civil society are either not invited to join, or under-represented.