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Five years on
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In our regular critical review, Hannah Bullock revisits stories we identified as interesting back in 2000 – and checks where they’re going now.
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Stunts in the boardroom
“We thought we were on the back of some sort of wave,” says Friends of
the Earth campaigner Simon McRae. Back in 2000, ‘shareholder activism’
was seen as the
way to get companies to clean up their act. Greenpeace bought itself
shares to gain a voice at the AGMs of Shell and BP, where it pushed
challenging resolutions on to the agenda [see ‘Greenpeace buys Shell (shock)’, GF22] and Friends of the Earth even published an online ‘how to’ handbook.
It’s great for “sending shockwaves through the
boardroom”, says McRae. He reckons the decision by Balfour Beatty to
pull out of the controversial Ilisu dam project in Turkey is, in part,
thanks to the resolution filed by the charity in 2003. But “it’s not
easy for NGOs to keep buying clumps of shares” in order to have a
voice. They also find it frustrating that investors here seem much more
reluctant than in the US to vote openly against the board.
“Abstaining,” says McRae, “is about as far as they’ll go in the City.”
Instead, “a lot goes on behind closed doors”. Which is where the
charity is taking its tactics. Its latest scheme involves bringing the
victims of overseas corporate activities to face-to-face meetings with
investors and members of the board in advance of the AGM.
Putting pressure on those who already have their
fingers in the corporate pie is certainly a quicker win, agrees John
Jackson of the Burma Campaign. But, unimpressed by the cautious “risk
analysis” of mainstream socially responsible investment, he says his
job is “to try and create that risk”. As well as giving investors
information to use as ammunition to force changes in company policy,
they warn them that they’ll “destroy the brand anyway” through
offensives like the current Totalitarian Oil campaign.
Stunts in the boardroom aren’t dead in the water
yet, though. Just this April, the doughty duo known as the Yes Men
found their way in to address the annual meeting of Dow, which is under
pressure to take more responsibility for the Bhopal disaster in India.
Amid suggestions for such measures as cleaning up the site, they also
launched a new corporate responsibility-type tool which they called the
Acceptable Risk Calculator. A few bankers actually signed up for
licences to this spoof programme, which purported to help businesses
“determine the exact point where human casualties will start to cut
into profit” and to suggest “the best regions on earth to locate
ventures with potentially very high death tolls”.
Friends of the Earth, 020 7566 1670,
www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/corporates
The Burma Campaign, 020 7324 4710,
www.burmacampaign.org.uk
The Yes Men’s ‘Dow’ website, www.DowEthics.com
Slow zones gather speed
It was good news when the government urged local authorities to designate more 20mph areas in their own communities [see ‘Safety, speed and the school run’, GF22]. But who’s taken up the suggestion?
Hull City Council has really run with the idea,
turning 25% of the city’s streets over to 20mph limits. There are now
120 slow zones in the city, sited around casualty hotspots – and 55%
fewer accidents there. But if it started out as a simple exercise to
address road safety, it has actually had a wider impact – “creating a
different kind of space” for the people living there, in the words of
city council official Mark Jessop. There are reports – and the odd
complaint – that more kids are now playing in the streets, and in a
residents’ questionnaire three years on, a quarter said they walk and
cycle more thanks to the speed limit. “The cars passing six inches from
your elbow are now only going a little faster than you are,” says
Jessop, a cyclist himself.
But this sort of success story doesn’t simply
come about by putting up signs and laying down sleeping policemen. At
Hampshire County Council, Graham Carter reminds us that “it’s a hearts
and minds exercise, too”. As well as getting residents involved in
choosing the zones, it’s essential to engage them in activities like
School Travel Plans, which get parents – and “the drivers of tomorrow”
– thinking about the root of the problem: their own travel choices.
Mark Jessop, Hull County Council,
01482 612103
Graham Carter, Hampshire County Council,
01962 857810
Gym’ll fix it
A few years ago, aware that leotards and leisure centres aren’t
everyone’s idea of fun, conservation charity BTCV came up with the idea
of ‘keep fit’ sessions in the great outdoors. A series of countryside
walks led by a GP [see ‘Greening the streets of Stress City’,
GF22] brought clear health benefits to his patients, so the charity
rolled out a whole programme of ‘Green Gyms’ across the UK.
There are now over 60 up and running (including
12 in Northern Ireland alone, and 35 in England) offering people the
chance to get their hands dirty and their heart rate up, through
activities like hedge planting, community gardening and footpath
construction. The weekly conservation sessions have helped individuals
suffering from depression get back on their feet, as well as bringing a
taste of that much-coveted “waist-to-hip ratio decrease” to those
wanting to shift the pounds.
BTCV hopes to double the number of Green Gyms in
England by next year. The charity is working with a variety of
potential partners – such as the Hindu temple that’s collaborating on
one project in the West Midlands – and also has plans to export the
trademark down to Australia and across to Europe.
BTCV Green Gym, 01302 522200,
www.btcv.org/greengym
Farming for flowers
When Green Futures
last reported from a field in Blakehill, the land was quietly awaiting
metamorphosis from an airstrip into a wild flower meadow. When we
called this time, Paul Hill from the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust was busy
castrating calves on the farm that’s been specially set up for the
transformation.
The cattle are as important as the hay cutting
machinery the Trust has invested in, explains Hill. Thanks to their
weeding out of the coarser grasses, flowers like the oxeye daisy, marsh
orchid and vetch have at last got a foothold at the site. The Trust is
now introducing species like scabious and knapweed, a job the cows also
help with by shaking out seeds from their wildflower-rich hay.
Although the meadow hasn’t yet reached maturity,
the 235-hectare reserve is to be opened to the public later this year.
Landowners are also invited to visit what should soon be a LEAF
(Linking Environment and Farming) demonstration farm. Now that
agricultural subsidies are conditional on farmers looking after the
environment, says Hill, Blakehill’s an ideal place for them to find
inspiration on how livestock can work for biodiversity.
Paul Hill, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust,
01380 725670
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