Newsletter Issue 5 September - October 2001
Business Action for Sustainable Development (BASD)

In September 2002 the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, ten years on from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Like its predecessor, the Johannesburg summit, also referred to as Rio+10, will be under strong pressure from the business world and others preaching the neo-liberal gospel. In preparation for Johannesburg international lobby groups the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD) have formed a joint initiative called Business Action for Sustainable Development (BASD). The BASD was launched during a UN Commission on Sustainable Development session in April 2001 by its chairman, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, retired chairman of Shell. This is the first time the world's major business organisations have 'come together under one banner in the interest of sustainable development'.

Or so they would have us believe. So far the BASD has shown nothing more of itself than a few press releases stating their deep concerns for the world's future and that 'business is a part of the solution to sustainable development'. But it is already clear that the BASD has no intention of keeping their involvement at the level of parading their concerns. Its steering committee has set out to 'ensure maximum participation from the world business community' in the preparation for and execution of the summit, and to 'communicate its core message at every available opportunity'.

But what is the 'core message' of the BASD? From reading their material one could assume that they are acting like Mother Teresa but driven by 'unabashed egoism'. The logic being, as Sir Mark explains: 'a future built on sustainable development is very much in the interest of business…'. A better picture of the BASD agenda can probably be found by scrutinising the records of the ICC and the WBCSD.

The ICC is a lobby group representing over 7000 corporations from all over the world. It has lobbied against any binding emission targets at the climate summits (promoting voluntary action by industry instead), worked against the implementation of the Convention on Biodiversity, opposed the inclusion of the precautionary principle in the Biosafety Protocol and is trying to obstruct the implementation of the Basel Convention banning the export of hazardous waste. In an effort to improve its image, the ICC has been deeply involved in the UN Global Compact initiative, an alliance between the UN and TNCs (the corporations give money and a token promise to follow nine altruistic principles, and in return they get to use the UN logo - see Newsletter 3). During this relationship they have vigorously defended their position that the UN should in no way measure or regulate how the companies live up to the principles they have promised to follow.

The WBCSD may be more subtle in its promotion of the corporate agenda, but a glance at their membership list (Cargill, Dow Chemical, Monsanto, Nestle, RTZ, Shell, Unilever, etc), again confirms that sustainability comes second to profitability. At the Rio Summit they lobbied against regulation of business and at the climate negotiations they have promoted emissions trading and other business solutions such as joint implementation.

The BASD will have its first major strategy meeting in Paris on 9-10 October. More than 150 industry leaders will discuss 'how best to ensure that business is effectively represented at the Johannesburg Earth Summit'. From reading the programme it becomes clear that they will be using the same greenwash tactic as WBCSD - supplying a list of narrowly chosen examples of good corporate citizenship. In the programme the BASD asks participants to bring examples of 'initiatives to be showcased and consolidated'. They are especially looking for examples that 'involve multi-stakeholder activities in developing countries'. That's only the PR part; behind the scenes you can count on them working on setting as much of the Rio+10 agenda as possible, using the usual extortion tactics against governments and the UN process.

A broad coalition of grassroots groups will gather in Paris during the time for the BASD meeting to discuss how they can counteract the corporate co-option of the UN and to expose the greenwash agenda of the BASD. To join them, please contact: Etienne, ecoropa@magic.fr, or Flip, flip@aseed.antenna.nl, +31-20-6682236 or +31-6-17836486 (mobile). A public meeting will will be held Wednesday 9 October at 6.30pm at La Bourse du Travail (Salle Charlot, M° République, Paris).

All the above qoutes are from the BASD website: www.iccwbo.org/basd
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