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Greenpeace and the captains of international industry locked horns in
the days before the summit, producing new reports on the much-vaunted ‘greening
of industry’. Penny Bruno of Greenpeace, author of Greenwash, argued at
the report’s launch in a Rio hotel that ‘transnational companies are at
the root of most of the world’s environmental problems. Now they are telling
us that they will be the saviours of the environment.’

At their pre-summit Industry Forum the following day, leaders of the
International Chamber of Commerce backed unfettered economic growth and
‘self-policing’ by industry on environmental matters as the key to saving
the planet. ‘The free market provides the best framework because it encourages
innovation,’ said Jan-Oluf Willums, author of their report From Ideas to
Action. It would encourage the development and spread of environmentally
friendly products and processes as well as generate the wealth needed to
adopt them. ‘Growth is the message we would like to leave at the Earth Summit,’
said Joseph Connor, president of the ICC.

Take Du Pont, one of the world’s largest chemicals companies. According
to the ICC’s report, the company has ‘a goal to be the world’s most environmentally
sound company’. It had strategies for cutting toxic emissions, making oil
tankers safer and creating wildlife parks on its spare land.

But, says Greenpeace, Du Pont remains ‘the world’s leader in ozone destruction,
one of the last producers of lead gasoline additives in the world and, in
the US, number one toxic waste generator’. You pay no money (both reports
are free) and take your choice.

Intense lobbying by the ICC and the Business Council for Sustainable
Development, has ‘tainted the summit’, said Bruno. They had ensured that
nowhere do the draft declarations and conventions to be signed in Rio call
for regulation of international companies.

Corporate sponsorship of the summit, including the supply of cars for
members of its secretariat had caused ‘the partial privatisation of the
United Nations’ Bruno claimed.

The Business Council for Sustainable Development had appointed Burson-Marsteller
as its public relations consultant, complained Bruno. Burson-Marsteller’s
past accounts have included advising Babcock & Wilcox after its nuclear
reactor failed at Three Mile island, A. H. Robins over the controversial
Dalkon shield contraception device and Union Carbide in the aftermath of
Bhopal.