GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL LOBBYING

IB Project Report: Group number 7 Arka Biswas Mohul Roy Siddharth Jain Ashish Gupta Subhash SN Amit Kumar Das

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Contents
Evolution of Greenpeace: .......................................................................................................... 2 Organizational Structure: ........................................................................................................... 2 Greenpeace Operational methods: ........................................................................................... 3 Greenpeace Funding initiatives: ................................................................................................ 3 Goal Achieving Techniques of Greenpeace: .............................................................................. 4 Type of lobbying:........................................................................................................................ 4 Case study: Volkswagen ............................................................................................................. 4 Case study: Detox Campaign ..................................................................................................... 6 Greenpeace case study on stopping deforestation ................................................................... 7 Introduction: .......................................................................................................................... 7 Asia Pulp & Paper Company case: ......................................................................................... 8 Key takeaways in the context of lobbying: ............................................................................ 8 Case study: Nestle ...................................................................................................................... 9 Greenpeace Indian campaigns:................................................................................................ 10 BRAI bill & GM crops: ........................................................................................................... 10 Recommendations for future campaigns: ........................................................................... 11 Junglistan: ................................................................................................................................ 12 Failures of Greenpeace ............................................................................................................ 13 References: .............................................................................................................................. 13

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Evolution of Greenpeace:
Founding stone of Greenpeace clear was laid in the late 1960s, when U.S. had plans for an underground nuclear test in the tectonically unstable island in Alaska raised some concerns of the test triggering earthquakes and causing a tsunami. The concerns led demonstration by around 7000 protesters launching Do not create a Wave Campaign, motivated by their vision of a green and peaceful world, a small team of activists set sail from Vancouver, Canada, in an old fishing boat. These activists, the founders of Greenpeace, believed a few individuals could make a difference. Greenpeace gained recognition in 1972 when it faced French army at Pacifics moruroa nuclear test site. Today Greenpeace is an international organization focusing on environmental campaigns. Lobbying efforts of Greenpeace is well acknowledged and appreciated throughout the world. Greenpeace international is a large International Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) with national and regional chapters in 40 countries. It has 2.8 million supporters worldwide who donate money and volunteer time. Greenpeace cultivates a large support base because it does not accept donations from governments, corporations, political parties or multinational bodies like the United Nations or the European Union. Some of the primary objectives of Greenpeace include: Protection of oceans Lobbying against deforestation Protesting against use of toxic materials in products Encourage Sustainable agriculture All these years Greenpeace have prioritized on above objectives and lobbied heavily against large governmental bodies and big companies like Nestle, Coca-Cola, MacDonalds, Unilever, Shell, Ford, Xerox etc.

Organizational Structure:
There are total 28 regional offices operating in 45 countries under the supervision of Greenpeace International which is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The executive director of Greenpeace is elected by the board members of Greenpeace International. Similarly the regional executive directors who quite autonomous in operation are elected by regional board of directors. Greenpeace has 2400 staffs and

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15000 volunteers globally. But the real strength comes from 2.8 million supporters worldwide.

Greenpeace Operational methods:

1. 2. 3. 4. Investigations to expose environmental crimes Work with affected communities to find solution Campaigning for greener, peaceful and equitable world Lobbying with those in power and responsibility to stop environmental abuse and incite actions

Greenpeace Funding initiatives: Individual supporters and charity foundations (both profit and non-profit) form the main source of funding for Greenpeace. In fact, nearly all of Greenpeaces

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funding comes from these sources. Most of 202.5 million donation in 2008 from 2.6 million regular supporters. Greenpeace does not accept donations from governments, intergovernmental organizations, political parties or corporations due to concerns about conflict of interest and inappropriate influences of these bodies on Greenpeaces activities All major donations are screened by a highly empowered decision-making body who ensure that the money is not the proceeds of illegal activities like gambling, smuggling or money laundering Face-to-face fundraising is done in order to verify the authenticity of the person and to ensure that the funding is not an attempt by any organization to legalize ill-gotten funds. Greenpeace has a dedicated department to ensure this

Goal Achieving Techniques of Greenpeace:

Direct-action Lobbying Research

Type of lobbying:
Direct Lobbying: Direct communication to a member or staff of a legislative body such as discussing potential contents of legislation with legislators meeting with officials of the executive branch to influence testimony on a legislative proposal Drafting or negotiating the terms of a bill Urging a Presidential or gubernatorial veto Grassroots Lobbying: Communication to change the public opinion in order to influence legislation Encourage the recipient to take action with respect to such legislation Call to action communication

Case study: Volkswagen

Volkswagen refused to support a key European law that would compel the carmakers to make more fuel efficient and environment friendly cars. The company cited

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dubious reasons to deter the passage of the law. The company termed the law as irrational citing political reasons. Also it raised a concern about the costs associated with the up gradation of technology. VW said they couldn't reduce their car CO2 emissions: "The 95 g/km Long-Term-Target for 2020 is the result of a political decision taken last year. It is not based on sound impact assessment nor on a realistic appreciation of the costs and technical progress necessary to meet the goal within the timescale" -- Volkswagen 2010 In addition to this it spent millions of pounds on lobbying. As a largest carmaker of Europe it had sufficient power to successfully lobby and block the progress of the passage of the law. Greenpeace launched an online campaign to expose the activities pursued by Volkswagen. This received a huge support from the internet users and it created a wave of spring which stood against the might of VW. Thousands of activists dressed as storm troopers protested at their dealerships and on the streets and direct actions at car shows across Europe. Finally in 2013 VW buckled down to pressure from across the globe and announced they will meet and support climate targets. The win against VWs lobbying activities is crucial for the world. Pollution from cars is one of the prominent causes of climate change, disrupting weather conditions and endangering the Arctic. The effects will be truly global, with developing countries like China and India where the market for new cars is continuously rising looking to Europe for innovations. Inefficient cars is the reason behind the world's increasing appetite for oil, which is increasingly coming from unconventional sources. Slashing car emissions will have a dual effect-on one hand will bring down the pollution and on the other hand it will reduce the demand for oil worldwide. That means there will be less incentive to drill in fragile environments like the Arctic. This case highlights the new and innovative tactics used by Greenpeace. Protesting using the online platform has created a huge impact on the organizations as internet connectivity across the globe is increasing. More and more social media websites are helping to spread the message and there is a growing unity among the online community to protest any wrongdoings by the organizations of stature as VW. Combined with the traditional form of protest like street demonstrations the online campaign provides a thrust to the overall protest.

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Though lobbying is legalized in many countries organizations like Greenpeace are protesting against it. This is in wake of the misuse of lobbying especially in cases concerned with the Climate.

Case study: Detox Campaign

It is another successful campaign that Greenpeace took on the fashion brands worldwide which used toxic chemicals for dying in the production centers of their supply chain. These were located in China, Mexico, and Bangladesh etc. Greenpeace understood the importance of public perception about these brands on their performance. So they campaigned to make customers, fashionistas, designers and others aware of the hazardous chemicals used in apparel manufacturing and its impact on local rivers ecosystem. Greenpeace organized volunteers in many countries who dressed up like mannequins and staged Walkouts from the stores of Zara, Mango, Espirit etc. The campaign stormed the online media with activities in Twitter, Weibo, Facebook, Pinterest etc. reaching over 7.1 million people.

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Greenpeace made a short video for the Detox campaign: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XxFWo4sCzCs The rising tide of people power has again shown what it's capable of. Top 11 brands buckled under the pressure and now committed to Detox. Brands like Zara, Benetton, C&A, Diesel, Emporio Armani, Esprit, Levi's, Mango, and Tommy Hilfiger have considered stopping the use of toxic materials and looking for alternatives. However popular brands like Calvin Klein, GAP and Victoria's Secret which so far failed to take responsibility are looking increasingly exposed. As Greenpeace strategic communication manager Tommy Crawford said This needs to change, and as more and more people around the world demand fashion without pollution, big brands had better listen or risk losing their customers.

Greenpeace case study on stopping deforestation

Introduction: Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non-forest use. Increased pressures of urbanization and industrialization coupled with more traditional causes like subsistence farming and logging has led to alarming rates of deforestation. Its estimated that over half of the

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15-16 million km2 tropical forests that covered the Earth till 1947 have since been destroyed. This has repercussions in terms of global warming, soil erosion, biodiversity and affecting the water cycle. Asia Pulp & Paper Company case: Greenpeace has launched a campaign to take up the case of Indonesian rainforests allegedly getting destroyed due to sourcing of paper and cardboard packaging used by KFCs food from the Asia Pulp & Paper Company (APP). The rainforests are a home to the last of originally three species of Indonesia Tigers and loses ~5 million acres of forest/year to logging. Greenpeace has been lobbying companies around the world to recognize APPs environmental damage and sensitizing international brands about the role they are playing in rainforest destruction if they continue buying paper products from APP. Under pressure, KFC-Indonesia suspended purchase form APP in July 2012. Key takeaways in the context of lobbying: Globalization of lobbying- Developed nation-based lobbying groups which earlier used to focus on activities in the developed world have started spreading their tentacles to emerging markets as well Companies have to be careful about their entire value chains- As illustrated by the KFC case mentioned above, leading companies can no longer look only within the boundaries of their organizations but have to take responsibility of their upstream suppliers and outsourcing partners as well because any issue with those companies is ultimately engulfing these companies also Certain sacred cows are being targeted by powerful lobbying organizationsPreviously untouchable and politically protected bodies like those associated with extraction of coal, sand and other minerals are now being exposed by lobbying organizations. These bodies, in a sense, have the best chance to mend the ways raw materials like coal and iron ore are extracted as they are in no way dependent on these extractive industries unlike many governments which depend on illegal circles for much-needed political funding Impact and the process of lobbying can occur outside government mechanisms also- As illustrated in the above case, unlike previously when the government had to pass legislations or orders to enforce a rule, the increasing power and heft of lobbying organizations is enabling them to achieve results outside the government mechanism also Credibility of lobbying organizations- Lobbying organizations through campaigning for popular causes have earned a great deal of credibility, especially among the urban, tech-savvy youth who can generate a huge amount of support

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for any cause that lobbying organizations decide to take up. Thus, the scalability of lobbying has gone up manifold.

Case study: Nestle

In 2010 Greenpeace successfully lobbied against food and beverage giants Nestle. Nestle was accused of having relationships with companies who were involved in deforestation of ancient forests of Indonesia. After successfully protesting against Unilever a year back for maintaining relation with Sinar Mas (palm oil and paper supplier), Nestle was brought down for same charges. Nationwide campaign was launched against Nestle with protesters dressed as orangutans coming to streets carrying bill boards of Killer Kat and have a break from rainforests. Large support from online community was also gathered through twitter and YouTube with Facebook being key online arena for the Kit Kat campaign, where a steady stream of pressure was applied to Nestl via comments. Face to face discussions and protests also took place at Nestls conferences and meetings. As a result owing to high pressure, Nestle declared its new policy committing Nestl to identify and exclude companies from its supply chain that own or manage 'high risk

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plantations or farms linked to deforestation'. This would apply to notorious Sinar Mas, a palm oil and paper supplier that Greenpeace has repeatedly caught destroying the rainforest - if it fails to meet Nestl's new criteria - and also have implications for Cargill, one of Nestl's palm oil suppliers, which purchases from Sinar Mas. By this campaign Greenpeace ensured that you have to responsible for the activities of companies related to you as well. The fact Greenpeace is concerned for the forests and environmental issues of Asian as well were well appreciated throughout the world.

Greenpeace Indian campaigns:

BRAI bill & GM crops: The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) gave the BRAI bill to have a proposal for the cultivation of the Genetically Modified food crops in India. The proposal made in 2010, initially had a meager response of negative aspect from the people of India. Despite having advantages of the Genetically Modified (GM) food as given below, there are disadvantages that have impact in the future.

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Advantages: Improved nutritional value Increased shelf life of the crops Inexpensive for the consumers Disadvantages: Increased toxicity in the food Chances of provoking allergies even leading to Cancer Most of the campaigns of Greenpeace-India are focused on creating the public awareness of the Genetically Modified crops. The public campaigns and the activists in India are not focused on creating a large amount of awareness of the activists. The trail of campaigning in India is given below. 2008 Greenpeaces first involvement in the GM crop Bingil to show the illeffect to the public through the Right To Information 2010 The Environment Minister conducting public consultations for the introduction of the GM crops in India 2011 Greenpeace exposed the Bio-safety violations of the GM crops which had a response from the state governments to withdraw their support for the bill. 2011 Greenpeace conducted worlds biggest campaign Baingan Bharta in Delhi against the BRAI bill which created enormous amount of response of 1,00,000 people signing the petition against the BRAI bill 2012 The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture combined with Greenpeace recommended the Government to have a complete revision over the GM crop bill & the regulating system The 4 years of standing involvement of Greenpeace had a tremendous impact with the approval of the GM crop bill. The Baingan Bharta campaign, which gave a huge success for Greenpeace, had a remarkable influence with the large population of India. Recommendations for future campaigns: Increasing the impact among the middle-class population through various awareness programs in the Super-Market & Hyper-Market stores where the food crops are sold Involving the youth of India through improved awareness from the student community. This involvement should be more from the agricultural universities around the country

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Conducting a national wide competition among the students of the topic Alternatives to GM crops which targets the student community

Junglistan:
Junglistan is the campaign started to create the awareness among the people of India against the coal mining in India. The campaign was started in November 2011. The campaign has its mascots Sheru & Bhaalu, which are the depiction of Tiger and Bear respectively. The campaigns main objective was to object the mining of coal which is used for the power generation and to look for the alternative sources of energy. Coal deposits in India are in large deposits along the central part of India along the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa. The coal is mined from the hilly deposits where there are small villages. The mining involves the relocating of the local population from the area and clearing of the forest to extract the coal from the land. One of the activists of Greenpeace, Brikesh Singh, lived in the forest for a month to show his intensions for the coal extraction. During his stay in the jungle, in a house on the top of a tree, he had a support from the local MP who was the key person in the Coalgate scam of India. Brikesh obtained a support of 114000 people along with their signatures to support the Junglistan movement Another support for the Greenpeace from the state of Andhra Pradesh is through the campaigns in Hyderabad along with lot of activists which gained support from around 2,50,000 people. The campaigns were also made to reach the schools to create the awareness among the students. The movement gained its support from the TEDx with Brikesh being the speaker of the event. Apart from these the movement also gives its importance to move towards the use of other forms of energy resources of solar energy. Greenpeace Junglistan campaign puts it demands to move towards the solar power generation for the country. Recommendations for future campaigns: For the improved lobbying into the restrictions of coal mining, Greenpeace must involve in the direct kind of lobbying such as having talks with the concerned authorities & the policy makers Create more awareness among with the local residents of central India through the media and visits to the village Build the alertness among the public for the advantages about the alternative sources of renewable energy

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Failures of Greenpeace
In 1995, Greenpeace mounted a successful campaign to force Royal Dutch Shell, coowner of the Brent Spar oil storage buoy, to dismantle the platform on land rather than scuttling it at sea, which involved the platform's occupation by Greenpeace members. A moratorium on the dumping of offshore installations was adopted in Europe soon after the affair, and three years later the Environment Ministers of countries bordering the northeast Atlantic sided with Greenpeace, adopting a permanent ban on the dumping of offshore installations at sea. After the affair, it came to light that Greenpeace had miscalculated the amount of toxic waste present aboard the Brent Spar. Greenpeace admitted that its claims that the Spar contained 5000 tons of oil were inaccurate, apologizing to Shell on September 5.

References:

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1. Genetically Modified foods by Nataliya Mogilna, Alex Magufwa, Sumy State University, Sumy, Ukraine 2. http://www.greenpeace.org/india/en/What-We-Do/SustainableAgriculture/GE-campaign/join_hands_save_your_food/ 3. http://delhigreens.com/2011/09/07/delhi-cooks-biggest-gm-free-baingan-kabharta-at-dilli-haat/ 4. http://www.greenpeace.org/india/en/Blog/Community_blogs1/volunteerworking-with-greenpeace-for-a-susta/blog/45638/ 5. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-1126/pune/30444144_1_preethi-herman-coal-mining-forests 6. http://gulfnews.com/news/world/india/junglistan-to-help-protect-forests1.934832 7. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/ 8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenpeace