Development & Aid, Environment, Tierramerica

Business and Biodiversity – Risk of 'Greenwash'?

BANGKOK, Nov 29 2004 (IPS) - Corporations returned to the center of debate at the third World Conservation Congress, which ended Nov. 25 in Bangkok. Skeptics say partnerships between environmental groups and transnational corporations only serve to ''greenwash'' the sullied image of some companies, reports Tierramérica from Thailand.

To skeptics, the partnership between multinational corporations and environmental groups is the business of selling ''feel-good conservation'' to prop up a company's sagging public image.

But to some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engagement with business and the development of strategic alliances really does matter, if one is serious about saving planet Earth.

According to them, big money helps pay for a better world — where biodiversity can be protected.

These two divergent points of view were brought up at a heated session on business and biodiversity at the recently concluded World Conservation Congress in Bangkok, organized by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

''One of the challenges from an NGO perspective in working with companies and businesses in general is to create a win-win situation,'' said André Guimaraes, executive director of the Brazil-based Instituto BioAtlântica, an NGO working to conserve and protect the fast disappearing Atlantic Forest there.

Two hundred years ago the forest covered the entire Atlantic coastline of Brazil and has been deemed one of the biologically richest systems in the world, home to 20 primate species found nowhere else on the planet.

Some 360 private reserves can be found in the Atlantic Forest, known in Portuguese as the Mata Atlântica, which since 1500 has lost 93 percent of its total area, and is now reduced to small ''islands'' of green amidst ever-expanding urbanization.

''My mission is to conserve the Atlantic Forest and the mission of companies is to produce profits and maximize benefits for their shareholders… Our challenge as an NGO is to show them (corporations) in their language what benefits they could get out of conserving biodiversity,'' Guimaraes told delegates gathered at the IUCN congress.

The World Conservation Congress, billed as the world's largest environmental conference, Nov. 17-25, brought together representatives from 81 states, 114 government agencies, more than 800 NGOs and some 10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries.

The final declaration of the congress called on the world's governments to meet the goal of halting the loss of global biodiversity by 2010. Species loss is occurring at an unprecedented pace, and nearly 16,000 types of plants and animals are on the brink of extinction.

The Mata Atlântica is disappearing two and a half times faster than the Amazon, the worst case of deforestation in the world, with the exception of Madagascar.

''We have 70 percent of the Brazilian population living within the Atlantic Forest and it is the source of 80 percent of Brazil's gross domestic product. And 90 percent of this area is private — there are farms, corporations and business groups there,'' Guimaraes said.

''So it's a must do. We have to work with the private sector, otherwise we are not going to do any conservation at all.''

But these ties do not come without controversy. Critics in the conservation community have voiced their concern especially when there is a parallel growth in the budgets of NGOs and the proliferation of their green logos alongside those of multinational corporations.

''The huge risk in this is what I call 'greenwash', whereby companies clean up their image but hardly change their practice,'' Marcus Colchester, director of the Britain-based Forest Peoples Program, told Tierramérica.

''I think conservation organizations risk paying too high a price for petty gains if it means them losing the trust of the public and their members,'' he added.

A case in point is the mining giant Rio Tinto forming partnerships with large conservation groups like the Britain-based Birdlife International.

The largest mining company in the world, Rio Tinto has headquarters both in Australia and Britain and operations on all continents except Antarctica.

For years, Rio Tinto has had a reputation for being responsible for environmental and human rights violations at its mines and smelters.

Accusations of corporate misdeeds include suppressing trade unions at their Australian operations, exposing workers to radiation in a uranium mine in Namibia, and negligence and complicity in the civil war in Papua New Guinea, where Conzinc Riotinto — a Rio Tinto subsidiary — used to operate a major copper mine.

Explaining Rio Tinto's partnerships with conservation groups, the company's environmental policy advisor Stuart Anstee said: '' We see these partnerships as a fundamental way in meeting our biodiversity goals on site.''

However, Birdlife International's project manager, Jonathan Stacey, admitted that NGOs were putting themselves in a vulnerable position when they receive money from corporations, but he defended Birdlife's cooperation with Rio Tinto.

''It's how that money is used, how it's targeted and how it's delivered on the ground. As long as it stays with Birdlife's key objectives, there is a strong foundation for cooperation,'' Stacey told the IUCN delegates.

Added Leon Bennun, Birdlife's policy director: ''there seems to be a misconception. We are talking about partnerships and not sponsorships.''

''We are not using money from corporate bodies to finance our programs. We are working with them to help them do a better job in looking after the environment — so conservation gains that way.''

Nonetheless, Sachin Kapila, Shell's group biodiversity advisor, was frank on how the multinational's board and shareholders tried to understand biodiversity issues.

''Looking at the sector we are in, energy provision, there's clearly an understanding that we have an impact on the surrounding environment,'' he said.

''But there's not necessarily an understanding at all levels of the organization as to what to do about that. And I think trying to use the term biodiversity causes an awful lot of problems for us,'' said Kapila.

Last year, Shell, alongside British Petroleum and other transnationals announced during the Fifth World Parks Congress, in South Africa, that they would not explore or exploit any of the areas listed as global natural heritage sites.