6.30.2011

Bonus gem

With the fate of Rio +20 at stake you'd hope that Secretary General Sha Zukang would come up with a better quote for the global media than this one (via ClimateWire):

"The environment is getting worse day by day. The resources are depleting very quickly day by day and the population is increasing day by day."

Nobody hold their breath.

Gem of the day

Toby Webb on the senseless distraction that is the debate over how to frame corporate sustainability (responsibility? CR? CSR? citizenship? right.)

"Perhaps the consultants need to spend less time on re-badging common sense as their own idea (TM), and more on challenging clients (c) and helping them deliver."

6.29.2011

Bonus gem

Ken Cohen over at ExxonMobil unintentionally proves himself why renewable energy sources will be better in the long-term than oil and gas:

"Risks are inherent in the oil and natural gas business. There is no guarantee that oil and gas will be found in quantities that will make it economic to produce. There is always uncertainty in predicting ultimate recoveries, particularly in the early stages of development."

Gem of the day

Joe Romm delivers a real zinger of a headline:

"The NY Times 'Noticed' That 'Green Jobs Attract Graduates'"

6.28.2011

Bonus bonus gem

Participating in an Economist webinar this morning on global energy demand--sponsored by Shell, of course. The head of research at the Economist Intelligence Unit just thanked Shell for supporting "this expensive and complex event", admitting "without Shell it wouldn't be possible". Hmm, kind of like climate change.

Bonus gem

Did Chesapeake Energy even read all the way through the first page of the NY Times article on Monday, rightfully investigating overblown natural gas claims? Here's the predictable CEO bluster:

"Aubrey McClendon, CEO of the Oklahoma City-based oil and natural gas producer, said the story, which ran in the Sunday issue of the paper, 'accused the company of exaggerating natural gas shale wells' productivity and industry reserve estimates of future well performance despite numerous available sources verifying the estimates.'"

Two gems here: numerous "available sources"? Try Googling "climate change", McClendon. Or "Notorious B.I.G. 1997". There's plenty of sources "available", but how many are accurate? How many are downright loony? Then there's the awkward question of what these sources are actually based on--if McClendon had gotten to page 2 he could have come to terms with this reality check:

"The Energy Information Administration relies on research from outside consultants with ties to the industry. And some of those consultants pull the data they supply to the government from energy company news releases, according to Energy Information Administration e-mails."

Gem of the day

David Roberts weighs in on the natural gas debate, citing what he calls "the WSJ effect" (via Grist):

"The Wall Street Journal editorial board has a long piece vociferously defending natural gas boosters and their happy projections. There are very few analytical techniques in which I have absolute faith, but here's one of them: if the WSJ editorial board says it, it's probably wrong."

Zing!

6.27.2011

Gem of the day

More from the energy vortex. Here's an analyst at the EIA in an April email to a fellow employee (via NY Times):

“Am I just totally crazy, or does it seem like everyone and their mothers are endorsing shale gas without getting a really good understanding of the economics at the business level?”

But wait! It gets better. A senior petroleum geologist at the EIA is even more blunt in a different email:

“E.I.A., irrespective of what or how many ‘specialty’ contractors are hired, is NOT TECHNICALLY COMPETENT to estimate the undiscovered resources of anything made by Mother Nature, period.”

6.24.2011

Another non-environmental wonder

What a Republican said about the state of the House of Representatives in 1935 (via NY Times):

"A supine, subservient, soporific, superfluous, supercilious, pusillanimous body of nitwits.”

Clearly not much has changed.

Bonus bonus gem

An unfortunate piece of mega-greenwash from GE--I say "unfortunate" because it's part of their Ecomagination initiative, which has so far been a sustainable beacon of light in the senseless debate over whether sustainable products and services can deliver financial benefits.






Ironically the slogan is pretty much right, but not for the reasons GE's marketing team were imagining. See Joe Romm for an in-depth review, in a nutshell here:

  • Natural gas is one of the worst greenhouse gases
  • More importantly, it's still a traditional energy source--why even bother when we have zero-emission, infinitely renewable energy sources available?
Probably the worst proof point the full version of the ad uses is that natural gas in the US could "power every home in the country for over 70 years". A few decades? What about a few centuries later?

Bonus gem

Fun statistics of the day:

Amazon accounts for 1/3 of all online commerce.
Walmart owns 13.4% of the entire consumer market.

Oh wait, that's scary.

Gem of the day

Oil and gas companies represent a third of the 29 companies on the Standard & Poor's 500 that have zero women on their board of directors (via Bloomberg).

Memo: It's not just the business strategies of those companies that are still stuck in the 1950s.

6.23.2011

Gem of the day

Only Al Gore could take the future of life as we know it and diminish it to this sleep-inducing sentence:

"What is now at risk in the climate debate is nothing less than our ability to communicate with one another according to a protocol that binds all participants to seek reason and evaluate facts honestly."

6.22.2011

Bonus gem

Thomas L. Friedman's column two weeks ago on Gilding's "great disruption" generated hundreds of comments from readers. Here's one gem:

"I'm fearful that the mindset fostered by the tremendously well subsidized pushback against facing reality using state of the art PR manipulation will survive yet more evidence as we continue to indulge in our "virtual" reality and infotainment as our primary source of information about how the world works."

Gem of the day

Nelson Lichtenstein examines the Supreme Court's decision to block a class-action sex-discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart that could have impacted over 1.6 million current and former female workers of the megacorporation. His conclusion:

"There used to be a remedy for this sort of managerial authoritarianism: it was called a union...For a time it seemed as if the class-action lawsuit might be a partial substitute. By drastically limiting how a class-action suit can be brought, the Supreme Court leaves millions of service-sector workers with few avenues to escape the grinding work life and limited opportunities that so many now face."

It's clear unions don't function as an institution anymore; they yield increasingly little force in the U.S. and membership has been dropping for years. But even more importantly, either way the Court's decision is yet another signal establishing corporations and their leadership teams as power holders that can basically do whatever they want.

And in other news, why should any company ever be allowed to get away with the kinds of labor and social policies that Wal-Mart has?

6.21.2011

Another non-environmental wonder

Response by David Foster Wallace to nauseating, predictable interview question in 2006, as published this month by our lofty, well-rounded friends at the New York Review of Books:

OK: What do you think of the modern state of American literature?
DFW: Ugggggghhhhh. Somebody asked me this a couple of weeks ago.

Gem of the day

Even if you're not a fan, you've gotta love Thomas L. Friedman for using a Paul Gilding quote this way to summarise the challenges we're facing:

"Right now, global growth is using about 1.5 Earths. 'Having only one planet makes this a rather significant problem,' says Gilding."

6.17.2011

Gem of the day

In honor of Joe Barton's gamechanging "Apology to BP" anniversary, here's an email the ever-genius Casper ter Kuile sent me in 2010 during that time:

"Dear BP,

I’m sorry for playing samba on a salad bowl outside your conference center yesterday when I should have been giving you moral support and making coffee. That was wrong."

Zing!

Another non-environmental wonder

Inspired by Congressman Weiner, a collage of Stepping Down faces from American politicians past and present.

6.16.2011

Gem of the day

Thought leadership from the energy sector: it's the stuff dream gems are made of. Now we're treated to a new initiative from our friendly folks over at Chevron (via Casper ter Kuile, who is always first to know about these kinds of things). "Energyville", part of their ongoing greenwash tour-de-force campaign "Will you join us?" is just as mindnumbing as it sounds. It's an interactive game that lets you plan the energy sources for a "typical city" in 2015.

There's a never-ending supply of critiques that could be made of this nauseating effort. Oh Economist Intelligence Unit, what were you thinking? Why are you manufacturing toys for corporations that want to superficially enhance their "green profiles"? But ignoring the game itself, let's take a minute and look at the fine-print provided upfront on the homescreen.

First of all, the sheer number of caveats outlined are enough to show that making this game at all was a waste of time. If you want to see a live game, watch a broadcast of the House Energy & Commerce Committee on CSPAN. Anyway, witness:
  • "...the game does not take into account the time and investment needed to replace existing energy infrastructure with your choices." Not to mention this barrier: the hopelessly distorted global debate over energy issues that has been driven by deliberate and proactive miscommunication from companies like Chevron.
  • "Global forces and technological developments may change current and future assumptions." May change? Please.
But this is truly the damning one:
  • "The game simulates aspects of reality, but does not serve as a perfect model of the real world."
Since when do we have any perfect models of "the real world"? It's impossible. It's not even a desirable goal, given the rate at which our world as we know is transforming. The fact that this is even placed as a caveat is a striking example of just how deluded we've become over what we know about the world we live in. And I'm talking about our societies and economies systematically, not just the vortex of the energy sector.

6.15.2011

Bonus gem

Over at Treehugger they're pondering the question "is 'green billionaire' an oxymoron?" Short answer: yes. Bill Gates gets a near-failing "D" grade, however: here's their explanation of why.


"Bill Gates - Until Gates can ensure me that his efforts to help feed Africa are devoid of corporate controlled GMOs he'll never be green to me. Grade: D. Some more human scale efforts to feeding Africa would"

More like a D Minus to me. But it's not because of the GMOs. Bill is one of those industry vortex people who believes, with an iron rigidity, there are simply one or two silver-plated pathways to sustainable development: nuclear energy and geoengineering. Zing!

And not only that, he attempts to destroy potential solutions that he doesn't personally think fit into those two pathways (lame-o "cutesy" stuff like energy efficiency). Which, awkwardly enough, is at odds with his lament in a recent essay on climate policy:

“The world is distracted from what counts on this issue in a big way,” he wrote.

True that. And it's certainly no thanks to people like Bill himself.

Gem of the day

I don't find this funny, but it's a gem regardless. Wal-Mart, long championed within the sustainability community/industry/vortex as a paragon of sustainable business value, is finally coming up against some real, organised public campaigning. Why? Because the mega-uber-corporation awkwardly misses out completely on the social dimension of sustainability.

A new union-funded non-union group (really rolls of the tongue, doesn't it) called OUR Walmart is taking its demands for worker respect and improved labor environment to the virtual streets of Facebook. The NY Times reports:

“I’m hoping that OUR Walmart will make a difference in the long run,” said Margaret Van Ness, an overnight stocker at a Wal-Mart store in Lancaster, Calif., about 60 miles north of Los Angeles. Ms. Van Ness earns $11.40 an hour after four years of working there. “The managers at our store and others are running over their associates as if they didn’t exist,” she said. “They treat them like cattle. They don’t seem to care about respect for the individuals. We need to bring back respect."

I wish them the best of luck. With over 30 global and regional awards for being everything from most energy efficient retailer to frothy champion of diversity, Wal-Mart's sustainability team can guarantee the industry is going to keep slobbering over its efforts. Minimum wage or not.

That's the American Dream, right?

6.14.2011

Bonus bonus gem

APP's response to the Greenpeace anti-Mattel packaging campaign is, of course, priceless. Here's a real gem from the official APP statement, referring to alleged compliance with Indonesian law:

'It is our responsibility to adhere strictly with these laws, not to satisfy the unreasonable and groundless demands of a foreign-based NGO.'

Seems awkward compared to one of their avowed tenets of the company philosophy:
"We are not only accountable to our shareholders, but also to the community at large."

In other news, strangely enough this statement doesn't seem to be available on APP's website, only through the media. Perhaps the company needs to hire some extra bodies for their PR machine.

Bonus gem

How to interact with independent scholar Nicholas Taleb, if you so dare (according to his website);

"Please do not 1) send me your papers or other “interesting material” to read, 2) ask finance questions (not my specialty, 3) make me to rewrite sections of my books (I write books, not emails), 4) ask for a list of “other interesting books to read”, 5) ask me to provide career or educational advice, 6) send me passages from Tolstoy or the Ecclesiast on luck and randomness, 7) send me the list of typos in my drafts."

Gem of the day

Few things are better than "definitive" statements from the marketing vortex. This one courtesy of our committed friends at Trendwatching (italics theirs):

"Innovation is the only way to survive in an ever more global, competitive business arena."

6.13.2011

Bonus bonus gem

BP executives seem to be a never-ending source of gems, regardless of nationality. Here's one from Bob Dudley's speech to a Chinese university back in May:

"Our aim, in China and around the world, is to use the capabilities we have developed in BP over 100 years to help countries access secure and sustainable supplies of energy...Let me briefly look at three – natural gas, oil supply and sustainable energy."

That's a wee error, right Bob? Categorising natural gas and oil separately from "sustainable energy"?

Whoopsies.


But wait! It gets even better. Via Casper ter Kuile, here's Dudley on the Gulf of Mexico:


"We responded immediately to the accident...In time, I hope that it will be recognized as an act of great corporate responsibility."

Bonus gem

Another gem emerges from the dark vortex of reporting. Here's how Tetrapak's CEO believes his packaging company is Protecting the Environment:

"We favour the use of renewable resources, such as wood."

Zing!

Gem of the day

Only Down Under, folks:

"Australia Considers Killing Camels for Carbon Credits"

So where would the dead camels go?

"The camels could be processed for pet food or human consumption, and the carbon credits earned could be sold to domestic or foreign polluting companies."

Mmm.

6.09.2011

Gem of the day

What's wrong with this IBM Smarter Planet ad?


Somebody call their PR team and prepare the defensive shells.

6.08.2011

Uber-gem

It kind of pains me to do this, but since I'm already on page 12 of PwC's pseudo-bible of CR reporting trends (that's right, a report about reports), here goes.

The gem lieth in the CR report PwC bestows honor upon for its "focus": BP's 2008 Sustainability Review. Here's why, in PwC's words:

"BP's 24-page Sustainability Review 2008 emphasizes the company's goal of 'no accidents, no harm to people and no damage to the environment.' There are many solid features in the report and on the website:
  • Live links throughout the PDF to more information on BP's website;
  • Comments from an independent assurance provider throughout the report, as well as a detailed assurance statement that comments on the strengths and weaknesses of BP's reporting;
  • Case studies documenting the company's activities related to each area of focus as well as a searchable library of case studies; and
  • Interactive maps, tools and quizzes."
This surely doesn't come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the sustainability vortex, but two comments:
  1.  Three of the four elements PwC finds so fab-o are just superficial, interactive nice-to-haves in a digital report. "Interactive maps"? You know, if I was a shareholder trying to decide whether an oil company is assessing its environmental and social impacts effectively, I don't think I'd want to take a quiz or click on a map. I'd want some real data (unless I work at Goldman Sachs, in which case that map looks great to me).
  2. More importantly, what if people had spent as much time asking BP about its actual policies for disaster response as they did exploring and lauding its reporting?
Sigh.

Gem of the day

Here's a real gem from the "darker" side of the green business scene in the U.S.-of-A, via Washington Post:

"Some think green burials are mostly hype. 'There’s an industry joke that more people attend green burial seminars than get buried green,' says Mark Matthews, president of the Cremation Association of North America."

6.06.2011

Another non-environmental wonder

Peter Diamond, a professor of economics at MIT, has a damning op-ed in the NY Times today explaining why he's voluntarily decided to step down as one of Obama's nominees to be one of 7 governers of the Federal Reserve.

Here's but one of the many gems which crop up as he describes his frustration with the Senate vetting process:

'Senator Shelby also questioned my qualifications, asking: “Does Dr. Diamond have any experience in crisis management? No.” In addition to setting monetary policy in light of a proper understanding of unemployment, the Fed is responsible for avoiding banking crises, not just trying to mop up afterward.'

Oh and you know what else? Diamond got a Nobel Prize last year for his work on the US labor market. Right.

Gem of the day


What could be better on a Monday than the CSR report of National Bank of Abu Dhabi sailing into my inbox? Probably the picture you're looking at now.

That's right, "NBAD" is how they abbreviate their company name.

It doesn't get any more unreal than that.

6.01.2011

Gem of the day

Unsurprisingly, business executives in Japan are not taking kindly to a new campaign from their government, encouraging them to wear less clothing to save energy in the workplace. The campaign, ingeniously titled 'Super Cool Biz', was launched with a cute little fashion show.

Here's what one of the target audience had to say:

"I personally do not think it is appropriate to go out in sandals and meet people," grumbled one official from the powerful ministry of trade. "Super Cool Biz would be difficult to implement at [the trade ministry], because we receive lots of guests from outside the ministry, including many foreigners."

Another non-environmental wonder

Palin visited Trump in his wee triplex apartment in Manhattan yesterday. Then they...went to a pizza chain together? But before the serious conversation started, Palin threw the press this single gem:

She did respond to one reporter’s question about Mr. Trump’s past donations to Democrats: “I think I’ll go change his mind and make sure he’s contributing to constitutional conservatives.’’