Grünen Kapitalismus - Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung

quently, the green capitalist position takes on a relatively more progressive
aura than it is likely to have in Europe. 178
The propagandistic expressions of green capitalism are ubiquitous, notably
in the form of advertisements portraying corporate polluters as “friends of
nature” (see the numerous illustrations in Greer & Bruno 1996). Public
relations (PR) activities may also include the establishment of institutes
with neutral-sounding names but with clear mandates to discredit criticism
of the enterprises in question. An example is the Council for Agricultural
Science and Technology, whose supporters include Ciba, DuPont,
Dow, and Monsanto (Greer & Bruno 1996, 142); an even broader entity,
formed in response to the 1997 Kyoto treaty, is the Global Climate Coalition
(Brown 2001, 261 f). More impresssive, however, than the essentially
propagandistic output of such groups, are specific ecologically oriented
initiatives, driven by the need to reassure critics that the private sector
is fully capable of responding to their concerns. Such initiatives, under
the rubric of “corporate environmentalism” (see Wallis 2008), represent
a more concrete – and in some cases imaginative – effort to maximize
“good will” (i.e., a favorable public image), both for each particular enterprise
and for the capitalist system as a whole. Examples are reported in
detail in the daily-updated website Corporate Social Responsibility Wire. 179
The measures, at their best, embody genuinely conservationist criteria.
However, they are undertaken within a larger framework which continues
to encourage profligate resource-use. For example, the various Disney
theme-parks tout an array of measures to reduce the carbon footprint at
each particular site, while at the same time encouraging millions of tourists
to travel long distances to visit their facilities (Pearce 2009). Another
example is the Dow Chemical Company, which, while sponsoring
178 It should be noted in passing that there is also a “left-wing” denialist position, whose
gist is aptly expressed in the assertion (Heartfield 2008: 55), “Global warming predictions
provide a useful, quasi-scientific justification for anti-working class prejudice.”
Heartfield’s contention is that capitalism is already green (not just in rhetoric) in
the sense of using an environmentalist policy agenda as a pretext for blocking the unlimited
expansion of mass consumption that would otherwise supposedly be possible.
Underlying his view of environmentalism as an elitist ploy (featuring organic food
and eco-tours for the rich) is a willful disregard of the actual science of climate change,
which he does not even mention. An attempt by journalist Alexander Cockburn to defend
such an approach is subjected to meticulous critique in Farley 2008.
179 www.csrwire.com. Under “members & profiles,” this website lists hundreds of companies
of all sizes, including many of the major transnationals. Most of them have their
names printed in green, which signifies that one can then link to news-releases describing
their particular initiatives.
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