Anti-corporate activism through social media: how Greenpeace is leading the way

As events in the Middle East have shown, social media can play a critical role in connecting up protesters around a common cause. Whilst in this context the aims are political and the targets are state leaders, over in the world of business, companies are also finding themselves the unwitting subjects of campaigns fueled by social media.   And leading the way in exploiting new technology to confront companies is Greenpeace. After having claimed the scalp of Nestle last year with its viral Kit-Kat ad that prompted the company to change its sourcing of palm oil, Greenpeace has also recently rolled out its "Polluter Harmony" campaign in Canada to confront government support of oil sands companies. Last week, it claimed another victory with the US retailer Costco announcing a major sustainable seafood initiative after a Greenpeace campaign featured the company in a series of videos going through an "Ocean destroyers anonymous' program. And now, it has set its sights on the social media giant itself, Facebook.

Greenpeace is no stranger to the use of new technology in anti-corporate activism. As Ethical Corporation reports, the organization was propelled onto the world stage by its use of live video footage from its campaign ship in the mid 1990s. The organization also led the way in using YouTube videos to target companies, such as its Kimberly Clark campaign back in 2004. Since then Greenpeace has continued to exploit developments in new media to get its message across and engage people in its campaigns against big companies. For example, a 2009 campaign against an extension to Heathrow airport involved setting up a 'Join the Plot' website that enabled some 90,000 people around the world to become "beneficial owners" of land earmarked for the new runway, thereby giving them the right to be represented at any future inquiries about the extension. Plans to extend the airport were subsequently shelved by the UK Government.

The Kit-Kat YouTube spoof, which was part of a concerted campaign to stop companies sourcing from the Indonesian palm oil supplier Sinar Mas, was so successful that it made it into our top 10 stories of last year. As Greenpeace put it, “With nearly 1.5 million views of our Kit Kat advert, over 200,000 e-mails sent, hundreds of phone calls and countless Facebook comments, you made it clear to Nestle that it had to address the problems with the palm oil and paper products it buys.”  And, lo and behold, it did.

The latest campaigns have so far garnered attention, and no doubt ruffled a few feathers, but it remains to be seen what kind of success they've actually achieved. The Polluter Harmony campaign was started in the US in time for Valentine's Day 2010. This February, attention switched to Canada after the Environment Minister Peter Kent started extolling the virtues of the 'ethical' oil sands. It's a well executed campaign featuring toe curling spoof videos of big company bosses and politicians (or 'tar-crossed lovers' as the Canadian declaring their love for each other in the form of those nauseating love match clips used by online dating sites such as e-harmony. Similar in style are the Costco videos portraying the company as an initially in-denial 'ocean destroyer' who eventually completes the 6-step program on sustainable fishing and graduates from rehab. They've generated thousands rather than 10s or 100s of thousands of views, so in social media terms have not exactly taken off, but all the same have clearly been a nagging irritant for the company.

And then there's Facebook. Here the tool isn't just social media, so is the target. It's a smart piece of media planning for Greenpeace to be attacking Facebook through, well ... Facebook. The main focus is a Facebook page urging the company to 'Unfriend Coal' as a power source for its new data centre. Featuring a cute logo that uses the iconic Facebook thumbs up (and thumbs down), as well as a cheeky (or maybe just annoying) video that apes the "Story of Stuff" technique to remix the Social Network the campaign is gradually going viral. The page now has some 60,000 friends and the video has been played almost half a million times on YouTube.

But its not just the numbers we should be looking at here. The interesting things about the Greenpeace social media campaigns is the way they manage to harness the power of new technology to get people to do more than just click 'like' or watch a 2 minute video. Here's a few of the things we think they're doing right:

Using social media to get people on the ladder of participation. Joining a Facebook group doesn't represent much in terms of participation, but issues like coal, seafood, runways or toilet paper aren't all that interesting. So it's critical to make it easy for people to get involved, to get their foot on the first rung of the ladder of participation, before engaging them further. Greenpeace has been adroit at engaging .. and then educating ... through providing extensive resources, constant updating of new material, and encouraging people to go go higher up the ladder. Once people know more, there's a better chance they'll participate more and write an email, join a protest, or create their own activist videos or photos.

Mixing earnestness with wit and irony. Activist groups believe passionately in what they do. and the issues they deal with are often ugly and unpleasant. So it's no surprise that their way of communicating is  a preachy form of earnestness. But that often doesn't work with social media where attention spans are small and content is typically "lite". Greenpeace has been effective in using wit and irony in its "lower rung" communications coupled with a more earnest voice once people's interest has been pricked. That combination is something other organizations, including companies, have struggled with.

Creative imitation. Like it or not, but in terms of getting a message across about big brands, parody works. Spoof ads, Facebook icons, dating websites - Greenpeace knows how to leverage the tools and brands of big business to communicate to the public. But it does so in a creative way that helps them stand out from a busy field. As academics, we'd be tempted to call this intertextuality - where the codes or meaning of one text are transferred or re-produced in another.

Fitting social media into a broader strategy.With all the hype around social media it's easy to forget that it's just one tool among many, and just one part of a broader strategy to achieve an organization's aims. Greenpeace appears to have been successful in deploying social media as part of a social change strategy that also involves direct dialogue with companies, developing new solutions, and tackling issues at a policy level.

And a couple of things they could still do better:

End of life 'take-back'. OK, it's not the same as letting your e-waste end up poisoning someone in Africa, but the artifacts of social media also tend to stay around a long time, especially online videos and webpages. Once a company like Nestle or Costco has changed its policy, Greenpeace might want to think about what it should do with all the critical content it has left out there that is no longer an accurate picture of reality. Taking videos down from your own website is one thing, but a successful "push strategy" can leave content lurking all over the web. We like the latest Greenpeace video 'Changes' celebrating Costco's success following the 5-step program - it's a real step in the right direction - but do they have a policy on what should be done about all the rest of the stuff they've produced and disseminated?


Further integration. So far, Greenpeace has been better at creating new content than linking it all up, especially between its different campaigns and across countries. It's a difficult challenge, especially in a network form of organization like Greenpeace International, and where you're trying to talk in (at least) two different voices. But greater integration can pay-off in terms of clarifying the message and capitalizing on successes. Given how far they have come already, it doesn't look to be beyond them. Though maybe that's just another of the secrets of success in social media - the courage to give up control.

Can the Canadian oil sands really be an 'ethical' source of energy?

The new year has got off to a bang in Canada with the new Environment Minister Peter Kent coming out of his corner fighting. According to Kent, the Albertan oil sands are not the environmental catastrophe we all thought they were. In fact, as he says, the oil sands are "an ethical source of energy". Yes, that's right. Alberta is the new home of ethical oil.  Oh boy, that's going to need some explaining.

Now, before you slam your head into the computer screen in disbelief, let's take a closer look at this claim and put it in a little bit of context. Kent's basic point is that because the oil sands are in Canada, they are properly and democratically regulated, they do not fall foul of corruption and abuses common in oil rich countries - and the proceeds don't go into funding terrorism. Compare that to the other states in the top 10 countries by proven oil reserves and you can see that he might have a point. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Venezuela, UAE, Russia, Libya, and Nigeria - hardly a list of ethical hotspots it has to be said. As Kent puts it, "[Oil sands oil] is a regulated product in an energy superpower democracy... The profits from this oil are not used in undemocratic or unethical ways. The proceeds are used to better society in the great Canadian democracy."

OK, so let's not get into a debate about just how "great" the Canadian democracy is. After all this is a country that, under the current Government, has regularly taken to shutting down Parliament when things get a bit dicey. But against the rest of the countries with big oil reserves, it still comes up looking pretty good by comparison. This is important for potential buyers of oil sands oil, especially the US which is concerned with global energy security, and is looking to wean itself off its dependence on oil imports from countries that it would rather not have to go to war with again. In fact, Kent's ethical makeover of the oil sands is all part of the major charm offensive that the Canadian government is pursuing to bolster its reputation in the US and elsewhere where climate concerns have started making Canadian oil distinctly unpopular in recent years.

In this context Kent is right to promote some of the virtues of the oil sands. All energy sources have their positives and negatives - yet the oil sands has become chiefly known only for its social and environmental downside. So a bit of rebalancing of the ethical equation is not inappropriate. But claiming any source of non-renewable energy is "ethical" and especially one that is fraught with such problems as oil sands oil, is not too helpful in advancing the debate in a meaningful way. Such claims may get media attention but they also infuriate critics and simply serve to entrench existing antagonisms. Climate activists are likely to target the oil sands even harder now that the Canadian government is drawing out the battle lines in this way. Greenpeace Canada for example had already started campaigning on a 'Separate oil from state' platform including an anonymous leak site for inside tip-offs about government efforts to promote the oil sands. This is all part of a concerted NGO response to what  the Climate Action Network regards as, "federal officials ... systematically trying to kill clean energy and climate change policies in other countries in order to promote the interests of oil companies."

Far better it would have been then for Kent to acknowledge the shortcomings of the oil sands along with proclaiming their virtues. Any freshman ethics student knows that a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis of the ethics of different energy sources has to take into account more than just one factor. Country of origin is just one of a whole range of relevant issues. There is no way that the tar sands can be regarded as an ethical source of oil based on one factor alone. But country of origin "benefits" can be traded off with climate change "costs" if you subscribe to a utilitarian mode of thinking. However, a myopic, one-sided piece of government propaganda doesn't help anyone ... especially when it is proclaiming the virtues of "the great Canadian democracy".

Photo copyright Greenpeace. 

Top 10 Corporate Responsibility Stories of 2010

Mermaids protesting the BP oil spill. Photo by Johnathaneric.

 It's been a big year for corporate responsiblity. A huge oil spill, continued ructions in the financial sector, landmark decisions in the courts, and a new dawn for online companies around human rights issues. It is never easy to pick the most important stories of the year. Some get huge coverage simply because they feature big brand companies. Some hardly even scratch the public consciousness despite having major implications. In other cases, it can be difficult to determine accurately what their long-run significance will be.

But here in the Crane and Matten control room, we've put our heads together to come up with what we regards as the top 10 corporate responsibility stories of the year. These are the events that we think will have the most lasting impact on the field. But it was a hard choice - narrowly missing the cut were the 10 year anniversary of the Global Compact, the FIFA World Cup corruption scandal, Unilever's "Sustainable Living" plan, Apple's labour violations, Wal-Mart's latest announcements on sustainable agriculture, Jerome Kerviel's massive fine, and American Apparel's rollercoaster ride through 2010, among others.

But, hey, not everyone can be a "winner". So if you think we're worng, or if we've missed off your biggest story of the year, do let us know. And while you're at it, take a moment to complete our poll on the right to help us find the top stories according to our readers.Here, though, is our top 10.

1. BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
Deepwater Horizon was one of the world's largest ever oil spills, and understandably this story absolutely dominated 2010. Not only did it put a final nail in the coffin for BP's once vaunted sustainability reputation, but it heralded a major rethink about the viability of deep sea drilling. BP didn't cover itself in glory by failing to come up with a realistic remedy until far too late - and ended up picking up most of the tab, thereby putting paid to the usual assumption that pollution is simply an 'externality' of business. Really, this was the mother of all corporate responsibility crises in 2010.  

2. Google's battle for free speech
Google's withdrawal from China at the beginning of the year was a landmark decision in the battle for free speech on the web. A real clash of titans, no other story this year illustrated better the clash between government and big business around human rights issues. But Google's subsequent legal problems in Italy, where senior executives were convicted of privacy violations, demonstrated just how complicated this battle is going to be. 

3. WikiLeaks publication of the embassy cables
Who knows where this one will end up, or just what its long term significance will be for corporate responsibility? But it's hard to deny its significance as a major turning point in the fight for greater government transparency, and the contested role of the media and NGOs in bringing confidential information into the public realm. Heralded by some as the first great cyber war, the WikiLeaks maelstrom inevitably catapaulted online companies into the fray with predictably unpredictable results.   

4. Citizens United decision
The only court case to make it into the Top 10,  but according to President Obama the 5-4 decision by the US Supreme Court in Citizen's United vs Federal Election Committee "reversed a century of law" and "opened the floodgates" for corporations to play an ever greater role in US politics. According to the ruling, companies and other special interests can now spend as much as they like on influencing the outcome of elections. And why? Because despite their vast resources, companies should have rights to free speech on political matters the same as any other citizen. An historic ruling.

5. Toyota’s product safety recall
This case grabbed a lot of headlines in 2010, mostly because of the very scale of the recall and Toyota's previously unblemished safety reputation. This was a huge embarrasment for the Japanese car maker and showed up serious problems in the firm's management culture.

6. Bank bonuses 
Bank bonuses stayed in the headlines during 2010. Despite continued economic problems, huge public bailouts in Greece and Ireland, persistent unemployment, and widespread austerity measures, some banks managed to award bigger bonuses in 2010 than ever before.  No surprise that the public stayed angry with a bonus culture apparently so far removed from their day-to-day problems. But European regulators finally seemed to get the message with new guidelines released at the end of the year that looked set to dramatically change the bonus landscape across the entire continent.

Butcher in Haiti with food vouchers used to stimulate trade. Photo by DFID

7. Corporate response to the Haiti earthquake 
Few stories better illustrated the precarious role of business in international development than the corporate response to the Haiti earthquake back in January. The arrival of cruise ships full of vacationers represented for many the unacceptable face of corporate insensitivity and amoral consumerism. Yet, few denied that business had to be an essential ingredient in getting the stricken country back on its feet again. 

8. Greenpeace campaign against Sinar Mas palm oil 
Greenpeace won Ethical Corporation's campaigner of the year in 2010 for its work in combating deforestation. This was exemplified in the NGO's campaign against Indonesian palm oil producer Sinar Mas which saw them force Unilever, Nestle and others to cease buying from the company during the year. Greenpeace's spoof ad on YouTube for the Nestle chocolate bar Kit Kat went viral demonstrating how campaigners were effectively harnessing social media for anti-corporate protest. 

9. HP's termination of CEO Mark Hurd
Hewlett Packard has had its ethical ups and downs over the years, but few expected the company to follow through quite so severely when CEO Mark Hurd was found to have made fraudulent expense claims to cover up a relationship with a female contractor. Rejecting Hurd's offer to pay back the $20,000 he'd received for the claims, the highly regarded leader was ousted by the board for failing to live up to the company's code of conduct. This was an impressive commitment to ethical rules by anyone's standards. However, it angered many who thought the company was shooting itself in the foot. A tumbling stock price and Hurd's instatement at competitior Oracle showed how much pain there could be in doing the right thing.

10. India's 2G licence scandal
OK, so actually this happened in 2008, but it was only in the closing months of 2010 that the full extent of the 2G telecom spectrum licences scandal began to be revealed. In what some have called India's biggest scandal since independence, Telecommunications Minister Andimuthu Raja was forced to resign over allegations that he lost the Indian Government some $38 billion in revenues using an opaque permit system that was riven with corruption. Leaked tapes of secret phone calls with corporate lobbyists have poured oil on the fire. This could yet become India's Enron moment.

So that's our Top 10 for 2010. Doesn't make for particularly edifying reading, but it hasn't been all bad. In amongst the scandals and corruption there have been some genuine cases of ethical leadership in 2010, where companies like Google and HP have had to make some hard ethical choices that have cost them dear. No ne said corporate responsibility was easy.