This morning, we travel back to November of 2007, to revisit a little news story about a certain energy company:
This week, BP was given an award for being a good corporate
citizen. By Forbes Magazine. (Stop. Read those first two
sentences again. OK, on we go.)
Forbes, that bastion of tree-hugging liberalism, has ranked the 100
largest companies based on their commitment to social and environmental goals. They
took a hard and presumably unbiased look at the way these corporations are run,
how their officers are rewarded, and how their business impacts the
planet. After much research, can you guess who they determined to
be "the good guys"? Four petroleum companies. Two auto-makers that
rely somewhat on petroleum. Three banks that invest heavily in
unregulated, developing markets. Oh, and one cell phone company.
Let's take a closer look at BP, the newly-christened "MOST
ACCOUNTABLE COMPANY IN THE WORLD." In 2000, after acquiring ARCO and
AMOCO, BP changed its name from "British Petroleum" to "Beyond
Petroleum." It adopted a pretty flower as its icon and gave all its
service stations a fresh coat of paint. In 2007, BP announced that they
would spend $8Billion in R&D for solar and other alternative forms of
energy. BP's new CEO Tony Hayward took over in May 2007 amid claims of
dedication to alternative energy and social responsibility.
BP is also the primary shareholder of a new 1000-mile pipeline through
Russia and Turkey, which
has been cited for 173 environmental and social violations in the design stage
alone. BP was recently found guilty of terrorizing Columbian farmers to
protect a pipeline there. BP is under investigation by the US Justice Department
for manipulating propane prices. In July, the state of Indiana and the
EPA awarded BP numerous exemptions from the Clean Water Act, which will allow
BP to pollute Lake Michigan; the Chicago
Sun-Times responded in August with a call for a BP boycott. And as late
as 2006, BP was named one of the 10 worst companies in the world by
Multinational Monitor.
So how'd they get that award? Perhaps it has something to do
with that massive media buy that they have made at Forbes Magazine. Or
perhaps a lot of powerful people are staring, glassy-eyed, at a pretty little
flower and repeating slowly, "BP is a good company, BP is a good company, BP is
a"......
You can read previous installments of
the quick Sliver in our online archive.
Just go here: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs015/1103023679528/archive/1103033975377.html
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