If you think green marketing is all about being environmentally accountable and communicating that with great impact and integrity, you and your recycling bins may be at risk. Today, Mother Jones magazine published an article
by senior correspondent James Ridgeway about a private security firm that spied on many environmental organizations, including the Center for Food Safety and Friends of the Earth. The company in question, first called Beckett Brown International (BBI), later S2i, performed these operations in the late 1990s and the early years of the new millennium. Eventually, the business collapsed when the principals' goals clashed. Download MotherJones_BBI_20080411.pdf
Ridgeway provides a heap of source documents, including internal reports and e-mail exchanges, to illustrate how BBI operatives proceeded. Apparently, gathering intelligence from trash receptacles and dumpsters was a favorite, reliable standby. They also placed BBI agents in environmental organizations and had them facilitate conferences and events. On whose behalf did BBI do this work? Most of the clients were public relations companies whose clients were involved in environmental controversies and had expensive, highly exposed disagreements with environmental organizations about the value of their products.
This article will definitely heighten your awareness of your trash, and maybe that bad-mood colleague will look a little suspicious when you've plowed through the whole long thing. In a touch of sleaze, at the end of page 3 of the online version, a teaser says, "NEXT PAGE: The firm's Obama connection." And if you hold a long breath and read through to the end of page 4, there it is. The current company run by a former BBI principal "provided bodyguards to Senator Barack Obama" last year. That's it! The amazing Obama connection!
Speaking of, Obama's environmental messages
are worth a look both for what's there and what's not. While the goals are commendable, if a little hazy, the environment according to Obama seems to have little value in itself, but it does provide us with alternative energy sources, air to breathe, and water to drink. That approach is not unlike that of Senator Clinton, whose plans don't offer as elegant a presentation as Obama's,
but feature more substance, with tangible goals and strong metrics. Related content presents her views on green jobs, green building, responding to the climate crisis, and more. It would certainly be interesting and worthwhile for voters if Clinton and Obama could have a substantive debate on how they plan to approach environmental issues.
If you're in the mood for a crowd, are in Seattle this weekend, and aren't already busy with Dalai Lama events, there's a Green Festival at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center downtown. You can even bring garbage:
"Bring your household e-waste to the Seattle Green Festival! This includes laptops, cell phones, PDAs, CDs, and household batteries. 3R Technologies will be accepting these smaller items onsite at the event. Do not bring large electronics."
Large electronics, of course, could hurt and confuse the intelligence agents rooting around the waste containers. Throw gently in any case.
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