What’s hot in London’s West End, an old friend wins Greenwasher of the Year, and a new UK corruption bill inches nearer

Enron, the musical

It sounds like the Mel Brooks film we’ve all been waiting for. Complete with high-kicking lines of MBA executives getting away with causing market mayhem.

But it’s real, and it’s now playing in London. Yes: Enron, the musical.

Greenwasher hopes some McKinsey executives will buy tickets. It was they who created Enron’s management strategy, after all. They made a fortune from it, and essentially got away scot free. Nice work if you can get it, they might say.

What next? Greenwasher can’t wait for next Christmas when there could be a chorus line celebrating the success of flogging collateralised debt obligations while dressed in extraordinarily camp city outfits.

Greenwasher of the year: Arup still pushing Dongtan

UK engineering giant Arup is keen to be seen as your sustainable project manager of choice. For years Ethical Corporation pointed out its claims to be the lead developer on a non-existent “sustainable city” – Dongtan, near Shanghai in China. The project has been cancelled and nothing was ever built even though lots of farmers were forced off their land in preparation by the Chinese government. And while the project was on hold and going nowhere, Arup executives were touring the world touting their credentials as master developers.

Now it’s been cancelled the company is apparently still doing so. Greenwasher’s contact saw them presenting and using the Dongtan example as being demonstrative of the firm’s eco-credentials in South Africa recently. Their chutzpah is admirable. It takes real balls to spend years discussing a non-existent eco-city in your Powerpoint presentations to beef up your marketing.

For this stunning brazenness, Greenwasher has no choice but to once again award Arup the wooden spoon (FSC certified) for Greenwasher of the Year. Congratulations Arup. Next year could be your hat-trick.

Finally, the UK bribery bill

A recent email from the UK government’s “bribery bill manager” may mean the UK’s anti-corruption lack of enforcement fame may soon one day be fading. It’s taken long enough, but the bill promises to “transform and simplify the law on bribery by replacing the existing old and fragmented legislative and common law offences with a single modern statutory framework”. It includes two general offences relating to giving and receiving bribes, a discrete offence of bribery of a foreign public official, and an offence of failure on the part of a commercial organisation to prevent bribery.

Finally, the UK catches up with where the Americans have been since the late 1970s on anti-corruption. Greenwasher hears that the Obama administration has boosted staff numbers in the Department of Justice, from where the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is largely enforced.

Greenwasher wonders if the UK will now do the same, going beyond the expansion of the numbers in the Serious Fraud Office in the past 18 months. That and a few more cases successfully brought to resolution would go a long way to addressing the reputation of hypocrisy that the UK, long seen as a corporate responsibility leader, suffers from when talking about anti-corruption abroad.

Giving the UK more credibility would help in overseas corporate cases too. Look at how British firms have suffered in Russia because of corruption. And some 30,000 people in Ivory Coast need some help right now. The multimillion dollar compensation package agreed after the Trafigura case has apparently been frozen, and may be doled out rather differently from how it was originally intended, according to recent reports. If the UK could present itself as tough on corruption, then it would stand a better chance of persuading other governments not to tolerate it.

Help for supermarkets

A report published in November by the UK pressure group Consumer Focus looked at which supermarkets were making it easier for consumers to buy greener products.

Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s came top. Waitrose was in the second tier, followed by The Co-op, Tesco and Morrisons. Disappointingly, Asda came in the last section, alongside Lidl and Aldi.

You can judge the report for yourself at www.consumerfocus.org.uk. See also Mallen Baker’s column for his view.

The report contains some hard-to-dispute suggestions for supermarkets, such as putting doors on all freezer units, providing consumers with incentives to reduce and reuse carrier bags and setting specific and stretching targets for sustainable sourcing.

Awards next year, including greenwashing

Having avoided hosting awards in the eight years since its inception, Ethical Corporation has decided to take the plunge.

So, on May 4 next year, this magazine will hold the Ethical Corporation Awards as part of the Responsible Business Summit 2010.

It should be an interesting evening. Not least because of the Greenwasher of the Year award to be handed out. We may even put that to a reader vote, so keep an eye on your email for voting options. And Arup might not even win.

More at www.ethicalcorp.com/awards.

Got a story? Email greenwasher@ethicalcorp.com.



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