I’m very fond of Greenpeace. Their distinctive brand of direct action (which requires some very bold activists!) has worked wonders for the broader environmental movement over the past few decades. However, recent problems threaten to undermine the organisation’s good record. I
An article in today’s Guardian reveals that, amid growing tensions between the group’s international and national divisions; a fall in donations; and poor labor relations, its finance unit has managed to lose £3 million. Greenpeace International (GPI) has apologised to supporters, pointing out that the loss was the result of an individual employee exceeding their authority on the group’s currency exchange contracts. Nevertheless, there is concern about the poor management that could have allowed such a catastrophic error to be made. It should be stressed that only GPI is said to be at fault- no national Greenpeace divisions are at fault.
Losing £3 million is, of course, a disaster in all cases. However, it’s particularly painful when staff are resisting being transferred from GPI HQ in the Netherlands, where they are paid Dutch level (i.e. high) wages to national offices on lower pay. Moreover, Greenpeace is financed almost entirely by small individual donations- a source of income it has tapped heavily to fund repairs to its Arctic Sunrise ship. The name should sound familiar, as the ship and its crew were at the center of an international row when Russian authorities captured it following a protest several months ago. Not only have Greenpeace blown more than enough cash to cover the repairs, but their supporters have only found out about the loss through a leak. Incidentally, the leak also reveals that Greenpeace didn’t campaign to have the Arctic Sunrise released because it was considered a “wasted effort”. Well, thank goodness GPI was wrong.
Greenpeace is a massive organisation, at the center of the global environmentalist movement. It has 2,000 employees and tens of thousands of activists. Yet it lacks the accountability and transparency of similarly massive NGOs. For example, the governing body of GPI is elected by the exectives of national branches: international officers are only very indirectly elected by members. Consequently the leadership of Greenpeace is subject to little oversight by the membership. Also, it is difficult to find any more than the legal minimum of information about GPI’s finances. How can it be right that Greenpeace’s backers are kept in the dark?
The next few months will see considerable soul-searching and debate about the structure and direction of Greenpeace. I think that, whilst it needs a strong international leadership, Greenpeace must embrace the democracy and transparency that it demands of others. Greenpeace has succumbed to the problem that so often afflicts successful pressure groups: it has acquired the resources and influence of a large group but retains many of the internal structures of the smaller organisation it was in the 1970s. If Greenpeace fails to adapt, it will begin to lose support: first the casual, ‘chequebook’ backers (who don’t like seeing their money wasted) then the activists as Greenpeace loses the capacity to support them.
Nobody wants to see that happen.
Except Exxon Mobil, Apple, most of the world’s governments, Big Oil, the larger banks, et cetera.
So let’s hope Greenpeace International cleans up its act. It is now more important than ever that environmentalists spend their energy changing the world around them rather than fighting and undermining themselves.