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inhoud: achtergrond
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Eyeforenergy, geld verdienen ten kosten van het milieu Persberichten
en achtergrond informatie bij de actie tegen de emissiehandel conferentie
'Eyeforenergy' Persbericht betreft: andersglobalisten bezetten congres over emissie-handel en eisen werkelijke reductie CO2 uitstoot en een andere economie in plaats van groenwas verhaaltjes Amsterdam, 19 februari. Vanmorgen heeft de actiegroep ARK de opening van het Eyeforenergy congres over emissiehandel in het Okura Hotel verstoord en de zaal bezet. Een tweede groep vroeg buiten door middel van een groot spandoek en straattheater aandacht voor het klimaatprobleem en het handelen door het bedrijfsleven dat werkelijke oplossingen systematisch frustreert. De bezetters eisen een directe reductie van de uitstoot van broeikasgassen van 60%, net als de aan de VN verbonden wetenschappers. De aarde is belangrijker dan de winsten van het bedrijfsleven en hun aandeelhouders. Tijdens de drie dagen dat Eyeforenergy duurt zal het bedrijfsleven de invoering van emissiehandel bespreken. Hiernaast komen ook 'weather trade' en 'energy trade' aan de orde en is ruimte voor het bedrijfsleven om haar 'milieuvriendelijke' kant te promoten. Een aantal bedrijven hoopt flink geld te verdienen met handel in uitstootrechten van broeikasgassen. Maar de voornaamste reden van de toenemende interesse voor milieu-issues is de angst voor regulering. Politici en burgers moeten geloven dat 'vrijwillige actie' van het bedrijfsleven voldoende is om de problemen aan te pakken. Dit oppoetsen van het imago wordt ook wel groenwassen genoemd. Emissiehandel
is een poging vervuiling uit te drukken in geld en uitstootrechten
om er vervolgens winst mee te maken. Hierbij gelden dezelfde regels
als in het huidige economische systeem. Dezelfde slachtoffers zullen
vallen, met name mensen in ontwikkelingslanden en het milieu. Emissierechten
worden gemonopoliseerd en mensen en natuur gaan eraan kapot. Emissiehandel zou geld vrijmaken voor alternatieve projecten, maar geld voor schone energie en andere zinvolle technologische ontwikkelingen moet en kan anders worden gereserveerd. Het grote probleem met emissiehandel is dat het de CO2 uitstoot niet terugdringt. Het pakt het huidige neo-liberale economische systeem niet aan. De overconsumptie en de eeuwige groeidrang in westerse landen wordt niet ter discussie gesteld. De bedrijven die voor een groot deel verantwoordelijk zijn voor klimaat-verandering, maar ook voor andere ecologische en sociale problemen, krijgen meer vrijheid voor hun 'business as usual'. In plaats van de huidige economische doldraaiende maatschappij waarin overheden steeds meer bevoegdheden overdragen aan de vrij markt staan wij voor een basisdemocratisch alternatief. Mensen moeten meer te zeggen krijgen over eigen leef- en werkomgeving. Laat bedrijven onder controle staan van lokale gemeenschappen en bestuurd worden door de werknemers en niet door op winst beluste aandeelhouders. De economie moet in dienst staan van de maatschappij en niet andersom. Directe invloed kan zorgen voor meer betrokkenheid van mensen bij hun directe omgeving en het milieu. Directe actie
voor directe democratie! Pressrelease subject: Other-globalists occupy conference about emission trade and demand a real CO2 reduction and another economy instead of greenwash stories. Amsterdam, February 19. This morning the action group ARK disturbed the opening of the Eye-for-Energy conference about emission trading in the Okura Hotel and they occupied the hall. Outside another group did street theatre and hung a banner to focus attention on the behaviour of corporations that frustrates real solutions. The demand of the occupying people is an immediate 60% reduction of the emission of greenhouse gases inline with the UN scientists' own recommendations. The earth is more important than the profit of corporations and their shareholders. During the three-day Eye-for-Energy conference, corporations will discuss the implementation of emission trading. Weather trading and energy trade are on the agenda, and there is time for corporations to promote their 'environmental' side. A number of companies are hoping to earn big money by trading emission rights of greenhouse gases. But we believe that the main cause for the growing interest for these environmental issues is the fear of further regulations. Politicians and people are encouraged to believe that the 'voluntary action' of companies is sufficient to tackle the problems of global warming. This image-building is also referred to as greenwashing. Emission trade is an attempt to translate pollution into money. If the rules of the current economy are applied to our climate, then the victims will be the environment and the peoples of developing nations. The conference is to be opened by Mark Akhurt, 'Manager Cimate Change' of BP, with a speech on the successes of this oil corporation. British Petroleum is presenting itself as the great saviour of the environment. However the fact that their greenwash PR budget is bigger than their budget for alternative energies, shows that this green image is no more than a stunt. At the same time, the company continues investments in new oil fields, and plans on enlarging its oil production by 4 to 5 percent per year. BP is only an example; similar things are true of other companies. It is claimed that emission trading will create funding for alternative energy projects, but funding for clean energy and other useful technological developments can just as well be gained in other ways. The problem with emission trading is that it does not ensure a reduction in CO2 emissions. It does not alter the present neo-liberal economic system that is responsible for the over-consumption and the eternal urge for growth in western countries is not questioned. The same corporations that are largely responsible for climate change, social problems and other ecological problems, are given more freedom to continue as usual. Instead of the present economically obsessed society in which governments transfer more and more responsibilities to the free market, we support a basic democratic alternative. People should have the opportunity to say more about their living and working environment. Let corporations be controlled by local communities and be run by the employees, not by stockholders' greed. The economy should serve the society, not the other way around. Direct influence will create more involvement of people in their surroundings and the environment. Direct action for direct democracy! (ARK) Amsterdamse
Radicale Klimaatactivisten emissiehandel & Kyoto(english) Since it was
first put on the table in 1996 by the US delegation, after intense
lobbying from big business, the concept of emissions trading has
attracted criticism from environmental groups as a loophole by which
rich countries can avoid reducing domestic emissions and buy their
way out of the problem instead. Much of the trade is likely to be
with Russia and the Ukraine, who took on very moderate national
reduction targets. Both countries undertook only to return emissions
to 1990 levels when by 1997 their emissions were already 30% lower
than in the baseline year of 1990 due to the economic collapse that
took place in those countries following the fall of communism. So
the US, for example, could simply buy up cheap Russian quota rather
than addressing the problem of its own over-consumption. This is
known as the 'hot air' problem. [www.risingtide.nl] Artikel geschreven na COP6, maar er veranderde weinig tijdens COP7 in Marakesh: Corporate Campaign to Corrupt The Kyoto Protocol Continues After COP-6 Het hele artikel is te vinden op de site van Corporate Europe Observatory (April 1, 2001) The UN Climate Change Conference in The Hague (COP-6) last November -- intended to wrap-up three years of negotiations on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol -- ended without result. At the last moment, European environment ministers rejected a compromise proposal that would not only have enabled industrialised countries and their corporations to escape their promised greenhouse gas reductions, but also would have allowed them to significantly increase their emissions. Northern governments and the unified corporate climate lobby demanded the right to "fulfill" their reduction commitments through various inventive but flawed instruments, including global emissions trading, as well as the accounting of 'carbon sinks' (carbon absorption via forests, wood products, soil and industrial and genetically modified agriculture) and nuclear energy. [1] For a comprehensive overview of the wide range of global equity and environmental problems related to the proposed emissions trading and other market-based "solutions" to climate change, see our November 2000 briefing "Greenhouse Market Mania". [2] Their efforts received active backing from a new financial sector that has emerged even before consensus has been reached on the Kyoto rules - the emissions brokers. With a massive presence in COP-6, and armed with huge injections of corporate financing, they have been lobbying hard for 'global free trade in greenhouse gases'. The attraction is clear - the market in carbon emission credits could grow to trillions of US dollars over the next few decades. At COP-6, this unholy alliance was only inches away from turning the Kyoto Protocol into the most corporate-friendly environmental treaty in history. Unfortunately, these corruptive efforts do not seem to have lost steam in the run-up to the next UN climate change negotiations, to take place in Bonn in July 2001. The big question mark after COP-6 is which strategy the new Bush administration will pursue: de facto withdrawal of US support for the Kyoto Protocol or a continuation of the Clinton-Gore legacy of trying to reshape the Protocol to serve US corporate interests? COP-6: Free
Trade in Greenhouse Gases? While the ICC put great effort into positioning itself (and business in general) as environmentally responsible, it's lobbying efforts aimed to prevent measures which would effectively combat ever-increasing CO2 emissions, measures which the ICC calls "command and control" policies. The Global Climate Coalition, which aggressively opposes the Kyoto Protocol and is widely seen as the most irresponsible business lobby group, used a different rhetoric style, but lobbied on a platform largely identical to that of the ICC, focused on unrestricted emissions trading. In fact the difference between the two groups is far smaller than is often assumed. One of the prime ICC spokespeople in The Hague was Brian Flannery of ExxonMobil, a company infamous for fighting the Kyoto Protocol. With his ICC-hat on, Flannery delivered the ICC's rosy "free market environmentalism" discourse to the media. But during COP-6, Flannery also spoke out as lobbyist of ExxonMobil and then the feel-good rhetoric was replaced by questioning the scientific evidence for climate change and making warnings against government investments in green technology. ExxonMobil is "firmly against the Kyoto Protocol" because "it achieves very little and costs too much," Flannery told the Earth Times. [5] Flannery, whose company has no plans to move out of fossil fuel production, explained that "you are going to need to expand the supply to meet the pressing future needs for energy, for things like the modern Internet, the "e" economy." While traditional corporate lobby groups attended COP-6 in record numbers, the most remarkable difference with previous meetings was the overwhelming presence of emissions brokers. Reflecting the degree to which the market-based mechanisms dominate the UN climate talks today, the conference centre was teeming with lobbyists from emissions brokerage firms, many from global consultancy giants like PriceWaterhouseCoopers and investment banks that have discovered "the carbon economy" as a new potential goldmine. The emissions brokers are united in a number of lobby groups, the biggest of which is the Emissions Marketing Association, which brought 48 lobbyists to The Hague. [6] Add to that specialised magazines like The Carbon Trader and The Carbon Market Analyst, which flooded the conference centre with expensive glossy brochures, and COP-6 looked more like a trade fair than an intergovernmental conference looking at ways to solve one of the world's most pressing environmental and social problems. Oblivious to the core social and environmental issues of climate change, the emissions brokers' rallying cry for global free trade in greenhouse gases rang loudly in the halls at COP-6 and in the ears of the government delegations deliberating there. Quantitative and qualitative restrictions in the use of market-based mechanisms, as demanded by many environmental NGOs, will only limit the amount of carbon credits entering the markets, the emissions brokers and rest of the corporate lobby argued. [7] According to ICC lobbyist Brian Flannery: "a ton of CO2 is a ton of CO2. The freer the market is, the lower the price will be". [8] But while low price carbon credits are obviously attractive to business, they are generally bad news for the environment. If the corporate dreams of abundant cheap carbon credits for sale on the emerging global carbon markets came true, it would only reflect that industry had been allowed to escape reducing its CO2 emissions at source. This could be done, for example, by buying credits from industrial tree plantations, generally to be located in the South. Business lobby groups consistently ignore the fact that allowing these "carbon sinks" to count as effective offsets for CO2 emissions is scientifically flawed and would result in a dramatic increase in global greenhouse gas emissions. And as the World Rainforest Movement points out, large-scale tree plantations are "commonly a direct cause of deforestation, deplete water resources, worsen inequity in land ownership, increase poverty, lead to evictions of local peoples, and undermine local stewardship practices needed for forest conservation". [9] […….] Crusade Continues At the same time, there is little doubt that the explosive growth of international emissions trading will continue despite the breakdown of COP-6. More and more Northern governments, not least in Europe, include emissions trading in their domestic climate change policies in the expectation that international markets for greenhouse gas emissions will develop with or without the Kyoto Protocol. [12] […..] NOTES Morocco: Buying Clean Air? By Gilles Treqeusser, Reuters, November 4, 2001 MARRAKESH, Morocco
-- Can we really trade the air we breathe? Non-bureaucrats and non-specialists were left out in the cold and the opaque language, not to say jargon, used at plenary sessions, workshops and in hundreds of documents was unlikely to be easily understood by the majority of people including the ones most affected by climate change, they said. "There is now talk of privatizing the air we breathe," said Tom Goldtooth of the U.S.-based Indigenous Environmental Network, in reference to an "emissions trading" scheme being planned. The scheme is part of the Kyoto Protocol's "flexible mechanisms" and would allow one country to buy the right to emit from another country which has already reduced its emissions sufficiently and has therefore "spare" emissions reductions. The Kyoto Protocol, forged in 1997 in Japan, seeks to cut emissions of greenhouse gases -- gases that trap heat in the earth's atmosphere -- by about five percent from 1990 levels by 2012. It will go into force once ratified by 55 countries responsible for 55 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in 1990. So far, 40 countries have ratified it, 39 of them non-industrialized nations. "With emissions trading, corporations have found a new way of continuing their ruthless commodification of nature," said Goldtooth, a native American. "They've lost touch with real issues that affect people. In my language, it is hard for people to understand what it means to trade air." He and other representatives of indigenous peoples deplored that the world's 350 million indigenous peoples still had no voice at the U.N. climate talks, unlike at other U.N. forums. Sounding a more favorable note, Mark Kenber of the World Wildlife Fund said emission trading was not the evil capitalistic scheme presented by some. "If emission trading delivers what you want it to deliver one would be in favor, but if it does not do that and expands the loopholes that exist, we would be against it," he said at a workshop on the sidelines of the conference. Speaking at a news conference, the NGOs' representatives gathered under a broad-based coalition called Climate Justice insisted on the need for big corporations to effectively adhere to guidelines that would protect the environment. "Only 122 companies in the world are responsible for 80 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions," said Amit Srivastava, of San Francisco-based CorpWatch. "And just four private global oil corporations produce 10 percent of all CO2 emissions." Advocates of the Kyoto Protocol, which the United States denounced last March as "fatally flawed" and harmful to its economy, agree it will not solve all environmental problems but hope it will set up a compulsory framework on which to build in the next decades. If Japan, Russia,
the European Union (EU) and a number of Eastern European nations
join hands, they would make up the needed 55 percent even without
Washington. The EU nations produce some 24.4 percent, Russia 17.4
and Japan 8.5 percent. Japan, the world's second-largest economy
which holds a swing vote, has been under persistent pressure from
Europe to ratify the Kyoto climate change pact without Washington.
Fearing that they could lose their competitive edge in the global
markets, Japanese business circles have cautioned against ratifying
the Kyoto Protocol without the United States. [http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=1508] USA: Bush Advisers Unveil Alternative to Global Warming Accord Associated Press, February 13, 2002 WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has drawn up an alternative to the Kyoto global warming pact, which 178 other countries accepted last year but the White House rejected, warning it would damage the U.S. economy. The administration wants to link the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to economic activity so that emission targets could expand or shrink with economic growth, according to a report by the president's economic advisers. Such an approach would be "flexible in the face of economic growth, encouraging reductions without threatening the economy," the president's Council of Economic Advisers told him. One official said the administration would lean on U.S. and foreign corporations to reduce their output of greenhouse gases. It wasn't immediately clear how the government would achieve that. The report to Bush said the government should encourage businesses "to think about their own emissions and opportunities for reductions." The report expressed doubts about the phenomenon of global warming -- the effects of natural climate change and human activity, and its pace. However, a report prepared by the National Academy of Sciences for the White House concluded in June that global warming was a real problem that is getting worse. The report to Bush last week warned that the Kyoto requirements could erode the nation's gross domestic product by up to 4 percent in 2010 -- "a staggering sum when there is no scientific basis for believing this target is preferable to one less costly." The Bush administration says the pact would make U.S. industry less competitive by forcing power companies and manufacturers to use expensive fuels or adopt costly technologies. Environmental groups said they feared a system of voluntary reductions would do nothing to halt global warming. Dan Becker, a spokesman for the Sierra Club, said linking greenhouse gas output with economic activity would be "nibbling around the edges" of the issue. "This is a series of voluntary steps that are linked to the health of the economy in a way that makes America a fair-weather friend of the global climate," Becker said. "When the economy is booming, we'll do something modest; When it isn't, we'll dump global warming over the side." The blueprint was meant as an alternative to the 1997 global warming treaty that President Bush renounced last year. That pact calls on about 40 industrialized nations to cut to fixed levels the carbon dioxide emissions that are believed to cause global warming. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer renewed the administration's opposition to the Kyoto treaty on Wednesday, saying it exempts many developing nations, including India and China. "Also, the president is very concerned about the effect Kyoto would have on America's workers, on American jobs and on the American economy," Fleischer said. "If that were to go into effect, it would have a screeching halt effect on the economy and people would lose their jobs as a result." Bush was to give a speech on the topic Thursday at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. He wanted to unveil his new strategy before his trip next week to Asia. Japanese officials are still weighing whether to pursue ratifying the treaty. Administration officials would like to give the Japanese some indication of its emissions policies before Bush travels there next week. The United States is the world's largest polluter. Last year it renounced its signature on the 1997 climate change treaty reached in Kyoto. It was the lone dissenter when 178 other countries accepted an accord in Bonn, Germany, on how to carry out targets of the Kyoto Protocol. [http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=1792] Groenwassen Tot een aantal
jaar geleden was het simpel; bedrijven ontkenden vaak simpelweg
milieu- en sociale problemen. En als het politiek mis dreigde te
gaan werd gehamerd op het belang van de economie en de werkgelegenheid
in de westerse 'thuishavens'. Maar de laatste jaren proberen ze
de wereld steeds vaker duidelijk te maken dat ze ook noodzakelijk
zijn om milieuproblemen en sociale ellende de wereld uit te helpen
en dat ze daar vrijwillig al hard aan werken. Dit gebeurt bijvoorbeeld
door middel van reclamecampagnes, een nieuw groen logo, mooi gepresenteerde
voorbeeldprojecten en natuurlijk veel gelobby. Deze nieuwe strategie
heet groenwassen of in het engels: 'greenwashing'. PR-campagnes Groene lobby Overleg met
belanghebbenden Voorbeeldprojecten Zelfregulatie Partnerschappen
Strategie
activisten Veranderde
bedrijfscultuur? 1) Meer hierover
bij de campagne tegen greenwashing van CorpWatch US BP Amoco Deze Britse
olieproducent is kampioen greenwashing. In de strijd tegen klimaat
verandering noemt het zichzelf 'Beyond Petroleum'. BP Amoco veranderde
zijn logo in een soort van groene bloem en het monteert zonnecellen
op zijn benzinestations. Ondertussen wordt er een veelvoud uitgeven
aan folders en reclamecampagnes om deze 'vrijwillige verbeteringen'
bekend te maken. En zich is er niets mis met deze zonnecellen, maar
de investeringen in hernieuwbare energie zijn slechts een schijntje
vergeleken met de winst die wordt gemaakt met de verkoop van fossiele
brandstof. Een voorbeeldje: BP Amoco kreeg een leidende positie
op de markt voor zonne-energie door voor 45 miljoen dollar Solarex
op te kopen, maar ondertussen werd ook voor 25 miljard uitgegeven
aan ARCO om de olie-productie te vergroten. (1) 1) 'BP: Beyond
Petroleum or Beyond Preposterous' van Kennie Bruno en 'CorpWatch
US Corporate Greenwash Organizing Kit BP: Beyond Petroleum or Beyond Preposterous? By Kenny Bruno British Petroleum's recent ad campaign with the theme of "Beyond Petroleum," led us to think about more appropriate phrases for the company's re-branding: British Petroleum: Beyond Pompous, Beyond Protest, Beyond Pretension, Beyond Preposterous, Beyond Platitudes, Beyond Posturing, Beyond Presumptuous, Beyond Propaganda... Beyond Belief. Recently BP, the world's second largest oil company and one of the world's largest corporations, advertised its new identity as a leader in moving the world "Beyond Petroleum." Such leadership would benefit the world's climate and many of its communities immensely, according to British Petroleum. Sound too good to be true? Let's see. BP says Beyond Petroleum means "being a global leader in producing the cleanest burning fossil fuel: Natural Gas." It's true that natural gas is not petroleum, but is it true that gas is a radical improvement over oil for our climate? In theory, natural gas emits somewhat less carbon dioxide than oil for the same energy produced. But when fugitive emissions, or leaks, are counted, the difference is slim to none. For the climate, natural gas is at best an incremental improvement over oil, and at worst a distraction from the real challenge of moving our societies away from fossil fuels. That challenge is what is meant by "moving beyond petroleum" when used by environmental groups. Rainforest Action Network, for example, says their Beyond Oil campaign works to "move our societies out of our devastating dependence on fossil fuels and into renewable energy options..." BP's re-branding as the "Beyond Petroleum" company is perhaps the ultimate co-optation of environmentalists' language and message. Even apart from the twisting of language, BP's suggestion that producing more natural gas is somehow akin to global leadership is preposterous. Make that Beyond Preposterous. BP's claim to be "the largest producer of solar energy in the world" is a little more serious. But being #1 for BP is so easy. It was achieved by spending $45 million to buy the Solarex solar energy corporation. That's a tiny fraction of the $26.5 billion it spent to buy ARCO in order to increase BP's production capacity for...oil. BP will spend $5 billion over five years for oil exploration in Alaska alone. And, according to one group of BP shareholders, BP spent more on their new eco-friendly logo last year than on renewable energy. When a company spends more on advertising its environmental friendliness than on environmental actions, that's greenwash. Speaking of greenwash, BP's Herald Tribune ad (see corpwatch website) is a bizarre classic of the genre. It is difficult to guess what their ad firm was trying to convey with the picture of partially submerged trees. Perhaps its just an unusual nature photo, or perhaps its meant to remind us of the frightening potential for rising sea levels and flooding from global warming. Or perhaps it's a Freudian slip, an unintentional reminder that BP's massive fossil fuel production is responsible for a substantial portion of global carbon emissions, and therefore, climate change. The ambiguity continues with the copy, "...starting a journey that will take the world's expectations of energy beyond what anyone can see today." Pretentious stuff for a company serving mainly oil and gas, with just a sliver of solar on the side. Make that Beyond Pretentious. Lobbyen, hoe en wat
Grote multinationale
bedrijven zijn mede-verantwoordelijk voor veel sociale ellende en
milieuproblemen. Het winnen van grondstoffen is verantwoordelijk
voor ontbossing, verontreiniging van de wingebieden en het verdrijven
van oorspronkelijke bewoners. De productie gaat gepaard met slechte
arbeidsomstandigheden, uitstoot schadelijke stoffen en een hoog
energiegebruik. Het transport zorgt voor nog meer energiegebruik
en aantasting van gebieden. De verkoop gaat gepaard met het misleiden
van klanten en het kapot concurreren kleine bedrijven. En tot slot
nog een afvalprobleem. We willen met deze actie en deze brochure ook niet bereiken dat lobbygroepen worden verboden. Het probleem ligt bij het gedrag van bedrijven zelf en bij de politici en andere mensen die naar de bedrijven en hun lobbyisten luisteren en in hun zoete verhaaltjes trappen. Om de invloed van deze lobbygroepen, die niet moet worden onderschat, te verminderen hebben we hier een aantal onderdelen van het lobbywerk van de bedrijfslobbygroepen kritisch bekeken: informeren: Lobbywerk begint simpelweg met het verschaffen van informatie. Soms is hier zelf om gevraagd. Het voor een lobbyist perfect als hij door politici gezien wordt als adviseur in plaats van als belanghebbende. Bijvoorbeeld bij de ERT en de UNICE komt het er uiteindelijk meer op neer dat lobbygroepen paternalistisch rapportcijfers uitdelen aan diverse overheden. vooruitzien: Het is voor het bedrijfsleven belangrijk lang genoeg van tevoren te weten wat er kan gaan gebeuren. Dat maakt het mogelijk daar op tijd op in spelen en ongewenste ontwikkelingen in de kiem smoren. Hiervoor is het nodig om rapporten, brieven en vergaderingen van politieke partijen, parlementen en regeringen op alle niveaus te volgen. Verder zijn uiteraard informele gesprekken zoals in de wandelgangen en bij diners belangrijk om tijdig aan informatie te komen. Dit is alles bij elkaar een hoop werk, maar multinationals en hun lobbygroepen hebben middelen genoeg om dit te kunnen doen. imago: Voor het bedrijfsleven is het imago erg belangrijk. Niet alleen voor het winnen van de klant, maar ook voor het beïnvloeden van overheden. De dure reclame campagnes zijn vaak ook bedoeld om politici en andere beleidsmakers ervan te overtuigen dat ze met een goedbedoelend, betrouwbaar bedrijf of sector te maken hebben. Als bedrijven zich presenteren als milieuvriendelijk, maar naast een paar cosmetische veranderingen niets aan hun beleid veranderen wordt gesproken van 'greenwashing' of 'groenwassen'. Vanwege een relatief grote aandacht voor milieuproblemen de laatste jaren, heeft groenwassen de laatste jaren een hoge vlucht genomen. Meer hierover in het volgende hoofdstuk. officiële samenwerking: Steeds vaker blijft het niet meer bij advies, maar ontstaan er geïnstitutionaliseerde samenwerkingsverbanden of 'partnerschappen' tussen overheden en bedrijfsleven. In veel gevallen zijn het de grote belangenorganisaties van het bedrijfsleven die deze samenwerkingen opzetten en er vervolgens actief aan blijven bijdragen. Officieel gebeurt dit vanwege de voorspelde win-win situaties; zowel de overheid ('en dus het land') als het bedrijfsleven zouden er beter van worden. De werkelijke redenen zijn vaak geldgebrek en toenemende machteloosheid van de 'terugtredende' overheid. Voor bedrijven is de samenwerking soms slechts een manier om projecten of orders binnen te slepen, maar het wordt ook gebruikt als forum om invloed uit te oefenen, om als eerste aan meer informatie te komen en om het eigen imago op te poetsen; 'Hoe kan er iets mis zijn met ons als dit democratische bestuur met ons samenwerkt?' Ongelijke
beginsituatie Met dank aan het enigszins oude, maar nog steeds goede artikel 'An introduction to the covert world of corporate lobbying' van Corporatewatch UK, <www.corporatewatch.org>.
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