FoE uses CSR as recruiting sergeant

Friends of the Earth is using a tough line on corporate social responsibility as part of its latest membership recruitment and fundraising drive in the UK.

Inserts titled ‘Get your filthy hands off my future’ have appeared in national newspapers whose readers are likely to be sympathetic, attacking the business world for its lack of responsibility. They home in on three companies.

Shell is attacked for pollution and oil spills, Wal-Mart for using its market power ‘to force farmers to sell their produce at cripplingly low prices’, and the Royal Bank of Scotland for its involvement in financing the Baku Tblisi Cehyan pipeline in eastern Europe. The leaflet encourages members of the public to send in donations so that the pressure group can step up its shareholder activism, lobby for regulation on CSR and ‘expose companies’ bad behaviour’.

A direct mail campaign focusing specifically on Shell has also taken a similar approach, and according to FoE is ‘breaking all its fundraising targets’. Sacha Tait, FoE’s direct marketing officer, told EP that fundraising messages which highlighted irresponsible business practices on the part of large companies were the pressure group’s ‘best performing’ marketing strategy at present . ‘We think the reason is that people can quite obviously see how the behaviour of corporates affects the world and there’s a really strong sense of them being able to know what they can do about it. They see they can make a difference by helping us to lobby companies for change, and government for regulation.’

Craig Bennett, FoE’s corporate campaigner, said campaigns on business behaviour were particularly good for attracting activists, 10,000 of whom have given their consent to receive details fortnightly of ‘actions’ on specific issues, such as sending letters or emails to government ministers and company chief executives. Bennett said around 1500 of the 10,000 take part in the actions each time.

‘Corporate responsibility is something that joins up so many of the social and environmental issues we campaign on,’ he said. ‘Of all the issues we have worked on over the years, it’s the one that brings the activists together.’

A number of NGOs, including Christian Aid and Oxfam, have recently hardened their stance, arguing that CSR programmes have delivered little in the way of meaningful change.