Five years on

In our regular critical review, Hannah Bullock revisits stories we identified as interesting back in 2000 – and checks where they’re going now.

Stunts in the boardroom

“We thought we were on the back of some sort of wave,” says Friends of the Earth campaigner Simon McRae. Back in 2000, ‘shareholder activism’ was seen as the way to get companies to clean up their act. Greenpeace bought itself shares to gain a voice at the AGMs of Shell and BP, where it pushed challenging resolutions on to the agenda [see Greenpeace buys Shell (shock), GF22] and Friends of the Earth even published an online ‘how to’ handbook.

It’s great for “sending shockwaves through the boardroom”, says McRae. He reckons the decision by Balfour Beatty to pull out of the controversial Ilisu dam project in Turkey is, in part, thanks to the resolution filed by the charity in 2003. But “it’s not easy for NGOs to keep buying clumps of shares” in order to have a voice.

They also find it frustrating that investors here seem much more reluctant than in the US to vote openly against the board. “Abstaining,” says McRae, “is about as far as they’ll go in the City.” Instead, “a lot goes on behind closed doors”. Which is where the charity is taking its tactics. Its latest scheme involves bringing the victims of overseas corporate activities to face-to-face meetings with investors and members of the board in advance of the AGM.

Putting pressure on those who already have their fingers in the corporate pie is certainly a quicker win, agrees John Jackson of the Burma Campaign. But, unimpressed by the cautious “risk analysis” of mainstream socially responsible investment, he says his job is “to try and create that risk”. As well as giving investors information to use as ammunition to force changes in company policy, they warn them that they’ll “destroy the brand anyway” through offensives like the current Totalitarian Oil campaign.

Stunts in the boardroom aren’t dead in the water yet, though. Just this April, the doughty duo known as the Yes Men found their way in to address the annual meeting of Dow, which is under pressure to take more responsibility for the Bhopal disaster in India. Amid suggestions for such measures as cleaning up the site, they also launched a new corporate responsibility-type tool which they called the Acceptable Risk Calculator. A few bankers actually signed up for licences to this spoof programme, which purported to help businesses “determine the exact point where human casualties will start to cut into profit” and to suggest “the best regions on earth to locate ventures with potentially very high death tolls”.
Friends of the Earth, 020 7566 1670,
www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/corporates
The Burma Campaign, 020 7324 4710,
www.burmacampaign.org.uk
The Yes Men’s ‘Dow’ website, www.DowEthics.com

Slow zones gather speed

It was good news when the government urged local authorities to designate more 20mph areas in their own communities [see Safety, speed and the school run, GF22]. But who’s taken up the suggestion? Hull City Council has really run with the idea, turning 25% of the city’s streets over to 20mph limits. There are now 120 slow zones in the city, sited around casualty hotspots – and 55% fewer accidents there.

But if it started out as a simple exercise to address road safety, it has actually had a wider impact – “creating a different kind of space” for the people living there, in the words of city council official Mark Jessop. There are reports – and the odd complaint – that more kids are now playing in the streets, and in a residents’ questionnaire three years on, a quarter said they walk and cycle more thanks to the speed limit. “The cars passing six inches from your elbow are now only going a little faster than you are,” says Jessop, a cyclist himself.

But this sort of success story doesn’t simply come about by putting up signs and laying down sleeping policemen. At Hampshire County Council, Graham Carter reminds us that “it’s a hearts and minds exercise, too”. As well as getting residents involved in choosing the zones, it’s essential to engage them in activities like School Travel Plans, which get parents – and “the drivers of tomorrow” – thinking about the root of the problem: their own travel choices.
Mark Jessop, Hull County Council,
01482 612103
Graham Carter, Hampshire County Council,
01962 857810

Gym’ll fix it

A few years ago, aware that leotards and leisure centres aren’t everyone’s idea of fun, conservation charity BTCV came up with the idea of ‘keep fit’ sessions in the great outdoors. A series of countryside walks led by a GP [see Greening the streets of Stress City, GF22] brought clear health benefits to his patients, so the charity rolled out a whole programme of ‘Green Gyms’ across the UK.

There are now over 60 up and running (including 12 in Northern Ireland alone, and 35 in England) offering people the chance to get their hands dirty and their heart rate up, through activities like hedge planting, community gardening and footpath construction. The weekly conservation sessions have helped individuals suffering from depression get back on their feet, as well as bringing a taste of that much-coveted “waist-to-hip ratio decrease” to those wanting to shift the pounds. BTCV hopes to double the number of Green Gyms in England by next year. The charity is working with a variety of potential partners – such as the Hindu temple that’s collaborating on one project in the West Midlands – and also has plans to export the trademark down to Australia and across to Europe.
BTCV Green Gym, 01302 522200,
www.btcv.org/greengym

Farming for flowers

When Green Futures last reported from a field in Blakehill, the land was quietly awaiting metamorphosis from an airstrip into a wild flower meadow. When we called this time, Paul Hill from the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust was busy castrating calves on the farm that’s been specially set up for the transformation. The cattle are as important as the hay cutting machinery the Trust has invested in, explains Hill.

Thanks to their weeding out of the coarser grasses, flowers like the oxeye daisy, marsh orchid and vetch have at last got a foothold at the site. The Trust is now introducing species like scabious and knapweed, a job the cows also help with by shaking out seeds from their wildflower-rich hay. Although the meadow hasn’t yet reached maturity, the 235-hectare reserve is to be opened to the public later this year.

Landowners are also invited to visit what should soon be a LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) demonstration farm. Now that agricultural subsidies are conditional on farmers looking after the environment, says Hill, Blakehill’s an ideal place for them to find inspiration on how livestock can work for biodiversity.
Paul Hill, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust,
01380 725670

22 June 2005

Hannah Bullock