An "Award" Corporations Don't Want to Win

An "Award" Corporations Don't Want to Win
Gustavo Capdevila
from Inter Press Service News

GENEVA, Jan 13 (IPS) - The annual meeting at Davos, Switzerland organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF) usually brings juicy benefits for transnational corporations, except for a handful that are singled out for a dubious distinction by civil society groups: the Public Eye Awards for irresponsible corporate behaviour.

History will repeat itself this year when the WEF meets once again Jan. 25-29 in the Swiss ski resort, where the nominees for the Awards include Alcoa, Bayer, Coca Cola, Chevron, Novartis, Walt Disney, Citigroup and Nestlé.

Two international non-governmental organisations, Pro Natura - Friends of the Earth Switzerland and the Berne Declaration, announced this week that they will grant the Awards on Jan. 25 in Davos.

The Awards are aimed at highlighting particularly irresponsible behaviour on the part of corporations in the areas of the environment, labour rights, human rights and taxes.

The objective is to take a look at the activities of the companies from a different angle, with a vision that it not limited to a merely economic focus on the environment, said Sonja Ribi, Pro Natura project leader for Politics and International Affairs.

The Award winners are selected from nominees proposed by non-governmental organisations from around the world. Last year the prizes went to Dow Chemical, oil giant Shell, U.S.-based retail chain Wal-Mart, and KPMG International, an accounting and consulting firm. Nestlé was also recognised with the "people's choice" award.

The novelty this year is a positive prize to reward a company that has stood out for its respect for environmental and social standards.

Oliver Classen, a representative of Berne Declaration, said the negative Awards are aimed at simultaneously counteracting the influence of the WEF, and to contribute to a debate on the darker zones of globalisation that is merely profit-oriented.

WEF, a Geneva-based private international organisation, has drawn the world's prime business and political movers and shakers together every year for the past 35 years, to discuss global problems and propose solutions.

The activities at the Forum are the target of criticism from civil society organisations, which are opposed to the approach it takes towards globalisation.

"But with the Public Eye Awards, we show what steps are possible and necessary in order to bring about a more socially just and environmentally sustainable economy," argued Classen.

He said that the effort to nominate and select companies for the Awards make his organisation feel closer to the World Social Forum (WSF), an annual gathering of tens of thousands of civil society activists first held in January 2002 in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre to debate alternatives to globalization in its current shape and form and possible solutions to international problems.

This year's WSF will be held in three different parts: Jan. 19-23 in Bamako, Mali; Jan. 24-29 in Caracas, Venezuela; and in March in Karachi, Pakistan.

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