Greens lose patience with oil giants Demo planned at BP chief's speech as softer image fails to convince
Terry Macalister Thursday October 23, 2003 The Guardian Attempts by BP and Shell to present themselves as "enlightened" oil companies mindful of climate change and human rights are running into trouble with protests planned at a talk being given by BP boss Lord Browne tonight. Rising Tide - a loose-knit group of green activists - is organising a rowdy reception for the oil executive when he arrives to give a speech on sustainable development at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London. Friends of the Earth - a mainstream environmental organisation - confirmed that it too is re-evaluating relations with BP and Shell due to their apparent failure to turn rhetoric into action. "ExxonMobil is still the bad guy but we are getting increasingly frustrated with BP and Shell which talk about climate change but put their money into [oil and gas] developments in places such as Russia and the Middle East rather than renewable schemes. We are not going to be cosy with them because they are doing bad things," said Roger Higman, climate change campaigner at FoE. BP has been at the forefront of efforts in recent years to create a softer image, rebranding itself "beyond petroleum" and introducing a sunburst logo in place of the traditional shield. Lord Browne has promoted transparency in payments to developing nations and talked of the need for large corporations to take a moral stance. Shell chairman Sir Phil Watts has also been keen for the Anglo-Dutch group to take a lead role in moves on corporate social responsibility. While this has generally been welcomed and set against the more hardline and traditional stance of Texas-based Exxon, the honeymoon period appears to be over. Rising Tide has been handing out anti-BP leaflets at institutions sponsored by the company such as the British Museum, National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain. The group, which came out of Reclaim the Streets protests, argues that BP is undermining fine words on sustainable development by involvement in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline which could be a "human rights disaster". Rising Tide claims BP invests less than 1% of its annual budget on solar and other renewable energy sources, a great deal less than they spend on advertising and public relations. "Don't be fooled by oil company public relations that the only people opposing their destructive agenda are privileged western environmentalists. In fact resistance to big oil's constant need to find new oil-rich frontiers is most determined amongst some of the world's poorest people," it said. It wants its supporters to turn up today at RIBA in protest at Lord Browne's talk which it believes will be "top-dollar greenwash". Britain's biggest company rejected the criticism saying it had never presented itself as anything other than an oil and gas supplier but one which wanted to play its part in reducing harmful emissions. "Energy demand is growing worldwide and it is our job to meet those needs at a reasonable price. We receive $300m a year from our solar business but there is no real commercial alternative [to hydrocarbons] so far," said a BP spokesman. The company has reduced its own CO2 emissions - 10% below where they were in 1990 - partly by concentrating on cleaner fuels such as gas rather than oil. It said it had spent two years doing environmental and social impact studies on the Baku pipeline.
