Greenwash & Public Relations

A new ski complex is being constructed in the environmentally sensitive Seven Lakes region of the snow-capped Rila mountains of south-western Bulgaria. Yet authorities have not been able to produce any planning permits nor have the investors produced any documentation of who is funding the construction. Read More

On the Indonesian island of Bali, thousands of senior government officials are negotiating a plan to slow global warming. The coal, gas and oil companies that are major producers of greenhouse gases are finally taking notice of these high-level political discussions, and many have mounted spirited public relations exercises to defend themselves. Read More

Early this August, Rosina Phillipe and Ruby Ancar drove from the government-issued trailers where they are still living two years after Katrina, to a boat landing at the end of a long dirt road. You have to go by boat to get to their tiny town of Grand Bayou, a "wetland community" in Plaquemines Parish, not far from where the Mississippi River empties out into the Gulf of Mexico.   Read More

Over a year after a torrent of liquid mud at an Indonesian oil exploration site inundated four villages, killing almost 100 people, the local community is still awaiting clean-up and proper compensation. This is despite the fact that the drilling company is owned by the family of a senior Indonesian minister. Read More

The U.N.'s Global Compact with international big business "at the moment is so voluntary that it really is a happy-go-lucky club," says Ramesh Singh, chief executive of ActionAid, a non-governmental organisation. The controversy has come to a boiling point because of the Global Compact Leaders' Summit being held in Geneva on Thursday and Friday, at which over 1,000 representatives of multinational companies are taking part, in addition to well-known civil society figures like Irene Khan, the secretary general of AI; Mary Robinson, president of the Ethical Globalisation Initiative; Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation; and Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International. Read More

Starbucks, the world's largest coffee shop chain, and the Ethiopian government are on the verge of unveiling a deal that the company hopes will end attacks on the company's carefully constructed ethical image. Read More

Fishing communities in the Caribbean island of Trinidad are protesting a $US1.5 billion aluminum smelter that will process raw material from Brazil, Jamaica and Surinam. Cedros Peninsula United, a local organization, says that the factory uses technology that has had serious environmental impacts in countries from China to Iceland and the U.S. Read More

Earnest shareholder resolutions presented at company annual general meetings on everything from human rights to executive compensation are routinely shot down in flames. But shareholder resolutions may have an effect, even in defeat. Read More

Ethanol made from corn has been touted as the "green fuel" of the future. Archer Daniels Midland, the largest U.S. producer of ethanol, stands to make a fortune from environmentally conscious car drivers. But is ethanol really as environmentally clean as it is hyped to be? Listen to an interview with Sasha Lilley on CorpWatch Radio.  Read More

The Tata Group, one of India's biggest and oldest multinationals, has taken over tribal land to build an enormous steel plant in Orissa. A clash between the traditional owners of the land and the police has resulted in numerous injuries and deaths, calling into the question the prestigious family-owned company's philanthropic image. Read More