corporations

The Society for Environmental Journalists (SEJ), which promotes "excellence in environmental journalism," is gearing up for its annual conference in Roanoke, Virginia in mid-October. As the conference is in the "heart of coal country," numerous sessions will address "the status and future of big coal." Richard Pauli, who writes the NoEnergyTomorrow blog, notes that two of the conference's "premier sponsors” are the coal-addicted energy corporations American Electric Power and Dominion Power. "It's like seeing a Heart Association 10k race sponsored by a tobacco company," he wrote. In response, SEJ Executive Director Beth Parke stated that the corporate funding is for Virgina Tech, which will host the conference, and not directly for SEJ. Pauli noted SEJ's response, suggesting that "an improved analogy might be that of a track meet being held in a stadium that shows tobacco advertising. It may not be connected to the team, but they have to run below the sign."

Texas flagJustice Dale Wainwright, a sitting Republican member of the Texas Supreme Court, is up for election later this year. Journalist Clay Robison notes that Wainwright is busy fundraising and this "means collecting campaign money, perfectly legally, from litigants and potential litigants." One of the hosts of a recent fundraising event for Wainwright was the Texas Civil Justice League, which contributed $6,000 to his campaign. The league, Robison writes, is "one of several business-oriented groups that have filed briefs urging the high court to reaffirm a controversial decision giving refineries and other industrial plants a new shield against liability claims from contract workers injured on the job." The next hearing on the case is in two weeks' time. Other sponsors of the fundraising event included ConocoPhillips, Koch Industries, American Electric Power, AT&T, Pfizer and the Texas Medical Association, "all of whom also are keenly interested in the outcome of the contract workers' case or any number of other issues before the high court."

"The ultimate selling proposition might just be saving the planet," said International Advertising Association (IAA) executive director Michael Lee. The IAA recently met with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss how marketing firms might help address global warming. Lee added that marketers can "help change consumer behavior, influence public policy and help the UN make further progress on the issue." Also present at the meeting were executives from Publicis Groupe, Interpublic Group, Omnicom, Ogilvy & Mather and Euro RSCG, among other major marketing firms. Secretary-General Ban remarked, "As climate change affects everyone, everywhere, the UN needs partners in the private sector and in civil society to mobilize and spur action." Details of the UN-marketer partnership will be revealed at COP14, the next conference on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will be held December 2008 in Poznan, Poland.

The Burson-Marsteller PR firm did pro bono communications and media relations support for America's Health Care at Risk: Finding a Cure, which is billed as "a bi-partisan conference bringing together major stakeholders in the health care debate for a high-level dialogue aimed at generating real and lasting solutions." While organizers of the conference were thrilled to have the free help, they may have been wise to check on B-M's health credentials. B-M has had a close relationship with cigarette maker Philip Morris and the tobacco industry as a whole over the years, having organized the smokers' rights group the National Smokers Alliance for PM in the early 1990s. In addition, B-M has performed crisis management work for corporate clients on a variety of issues, including Salmonella (Schwan's and Jewel Supermarkets), worldwide product recall and relaunch (Perrier), and Mad cow disease/BSE (McDonald's and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association). B-M is glad for the opportunity to burnish its image. Chris Foster, Chair of Burson-Marsteller's U.S. Health Care Practice said, "We are proud to be part of this bi-partisan effort to develop real solutions for one of the major challenges facing the U.S. today."

Kevin Anderson, blog editor for the UK Guardian, was bemused by an advertisement posted in the Washington DC subway. "This ad of a man's beer belly stuffed with bills railing away against trial lawyers probably makes little sense to the average American. ... Figuring out who is behind ads like this is even more interesting. The ad highlights an innocuous sounding website www.ConsumerFreedom.com (because who would be against consumer freedom?). What is this group? SourceWatch gives the history and current campaigns of the Center for Consumer Freedom. They originally started to fight against smoking restrictions in restaurants backed with money from tobacco giant Philip Morris. They have since expanded into other areas including anti-anti-obesity. Hard-hitting news funny man Stephen Colbert gets to the bottom of the story in this interview of Rick Berman, the PR man behind the Center for Consumer Freedom."

The Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI) is alarmed about the extent of corporate greenwashing. The authority's chief executive, Frank Goodman, explained, "You are not allowed to say your product is good for the environment unless you can prove this. Our code is very specific on this point." Of particular concern are claims by companies that they have become "carbon neutral" by buying carbon offsets for their greenhouse gas emissions. John Curran, the environmental executive for Musgrave Group, which markets leading retail brands, said, "It's easy to make the claim, but it is almost impossible to really be carbon neutral. ... Low carbon is the best you can aim for. But once PR gets a hold of things, being seen as green can turn into a crusade for some companies."

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade association of car and light truck manufacturers, has launched "EcoDriving," "a national campaign intended to empower consumers on an individual basis to reduce fuel use and CO2 emissions." The campaign will utilize social networking, events, and media outreach to "offers manufacturers an opportunity to show consumers they are part of the solution." Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the Environmental Defense Fund have all endorsed the campaign. But as CMD previously reported, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers employed PR firm Fleishman-Hillard in 2007 to oppose efforts to raise fuel mileage standards to 52 miles per gallon by 2030.

"We do not want children to smoke," British American Tobacco (BAT) declares on its website. But the company that describes itself as the "world's most international tobacco group" routinely violates its own voluntary international marketing and advertising standards, according to a July 1, 2008 BBC-TV This World investigation. BAT was caught in Malawi, Mauritius and Nigeria using marketing tactics that are well-known to appeal to youth: advertising and selling single cigarettes, and sponsoring non-age-restricted, product-branded musical entertainment. (See also "Playing with Children's Lives: Big Tobacco in Malawi.")

When a company adopts and prominently touts its voluntary behavior codes, only to end up violating them, people start asking questions: What are the real reasons for these codes? Are they just for public relations (PR) purposes? To, as they say, 'cover your a*s' (CYA)? How did they arise? What, if any, value do they have?

The U.S. Labor Department has only "ruled in favor of [corporate] whistleblowers 17 times out of 1,273 complaints filed since 2002," and has dismissed 841 cases. Many of the dismissals were based "on the technicality that workers at corporate subsidiaries aren't covered" by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Act, passed after the Enron and Worldcom scandals, contained the first federal protections for corporate whistleblowers. Senator Patrick Leahy, who helped draft the Act, says it covers workers in corporate subsidiaries. "Otherwise," he explained, "a company that wants to do something shady, could just do it in their subsidiary." The Labor Department disagrees. One of the whistleblower cases it dismissed involves communications giant WPP. A former staffer at WPP's ad firm Ogilvy & Mather claims he was fired "in retaliation for his cooperation with a federal criminal investigation into his employer's billing practices." Two former Ogilvy executives received prison sentences for overbilling the U.S. government, but the staffer's whistleblower complaint was dismissed. Even though WPP describes its firms as "centrally integrated," the Labor Department ruled that Ogilvy is a subsidiary not covered by Sarbanes-Oxley.

Corporate-funded "educational" materials about healthy eating distributed to British schools have been criticized by Britain's Food Standards Agency, the Department of Health and dieticians' groups. "It's bad nutritional advice, which could give children wrong ideas about food at a very impressionable time," said Richard Watts of the Children's Food Campaign. The campaign is "assembling a dossier" on such materials, to prod the government to act. One pamphlet from the British Soft Drinks Association cautions students against refilling soda bottles with tap water, claiming it's "unsafe" and "can lead to contamination." A Dairy Council leaflet urges "three to four servings of milk, yoghurt or cheese" to "ensure that teenagers get all the calcium they need." Other sponsored materials direct students "to eat six slices of bread a day," claim that eating cheese "will soon have you a lot healthier," and compare soft drinks to "rice, pasta and bread."