With Craig Ray – who has kept this site running – in New Zealand currently, we are experiencing a few glitches, for which apologies. The ‘Comment’ function failed various people who tried to respond to my earlier post titled, ‘Has BP Ended the CSR Era?’
Jem Bendell replied: “The Western HQ’d International Oil Companies have declining access to future oil fields if compared to national oil companies from countries now able to dictate terms more than before. Therefore the IoC’s either become more adept at high tech oil extraction, in deeper water, artic, and from sources like tar sands, and/or they seek to reinvent themselves as energy companies. The PR says the latter, the core investment decisions reveal the former. And the former = more risk to the environment and the staff on the rigs. For years, good smart people have told the IoC’s to invest in the transition to low carbon fuels and in creating better global governance mechanisms so the national oil companies dont undercut by externalising costs onto the environment, and labour rights. Apart from a few people in each IoC working on such an agenda, it seems their super tanker bureaucracies plough on towards the reef… If that’s so, then good riddance, but then we have the challenge of the rest of the world’s oil industry; how to influence their strategies and practices becomes the key question, no?”
John Morrison, Executive Director, Institute for Human Rights, replied: “John – can’t help agreeing with you on this. The ‘CSR’ era is ending for a number of reasons – as Geoffrey Chandler predicted it would 10 years ago – fundamentally because the environmental and human rights challenges business face are about their core business, governance and accountability. The post-Browne correction at BP seems to have gone too far – leaving the company with a lack of capacity to maintain the social licence to operate.”
Daianne Rincones of the Kellogg School, Northwestern University, replied: “John, I share your disappointment. I too found myself in BP’s HQ several times over the years under the pretext of sustainability. I had my first misgivings a few years ago, when a group of us gathered there to learn more about the latest ‘beyond petroleum’ campaign were told by a BP exec that they were unashamedly an oil company. About a year ago, I had another conversation with a BP employee who revealed that Tony Hayward’s sustainability strategy was to ‘postpone the future’. It was just after that phone call that I predicted to those around me the demise of BP within my lifetime. At the time, it sounded almost silly. Then, last week, I was chatting with a former BP exec who told me the reason they left was because it was clear the people who controlled over 90% of the business would never buy into ‘beyond petroleum’.”
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