Greenwash+20 - Greenpeace

Summary of the Cases in this
Report
This report profiles six companies and one business
association, all of which claim to be playing a helpful role
on sustainability, but are in fact standing in the way of
progress.
Duke Energy is another company whose business
has a profound effect on achieving a sustainable energy
revolution, and whose management is close to the top
in stated commitment to greenness and sustainability.
Despite kind words about climate protection, Duke is one
of the US utilities still building coal-fired power plants.
The International Chamber of Commerce is the selfappointed
voice of global business, which has embraced
UN sustainable development processes since 1992. The
problem is that its love for the UN is conditioned on that
body’s acquiescence to purely voluntary agreements
when it comes to sustainability. We trace the way the ICC
has become a sort of “super-stakeholder” at sustainable
development fora, and the way it has overwhelmed
alternative, more progressive business voices.
Western companies are not the only big players anymore,
and two companies from emerging economies are profiled
in this report. Our Indonesian case study looks at the way
Indonesia’s Asian Pulp and Paper is standing in the way
of both climate and biodiversity protection, threatening
the nearly extinct Sumatran tiger and the endangered
Sumatran orangutan through destruction of tropical forests
and peat lands.
Shell was the subject of a “greenwash snapshot” in our
1992 report, a winner of a “Greenwash Award” given by
NGOs in Johannesburg in 2002, and is back again as a
result of its persistence in attending every sustainability
forum, lending executives to BASD, and publishing
some of the best greenwash advertising ever produced.
Greenpeace, which has opposed many of Shell’s activities
from the Arctic to Nigeria, has also shared the stage with
the company in supporting the Kyoto Protocol. Now
it’s time to assess what 20 years of “leadership” has
achieved. We find that despite all the years of rhetoric,
Shell is increasing its carbon intensity, its investments in
risky and high carbon fuels, and reducing its investment in
renewable energy.
In Brazil, where progress has been made in protecting
the Amazon rainforest, the beef giant JBS is failing to
implement its commitments to monitor sources of beef, the
single biggest cause of deforestation in the Amazon. This
comes at crucial political moment for the future of a ground
breaking Zero Deforestation Law, right here in Rio+20’s
host country.
6 Greenwash+20 How some powerful corporations are standing in the way of sustainable development