Fabian Pattberg

Tag Archives - stakeholders

What the Greenpeace Nestle KitKat campaign is missing

March 19, 201012:37 pm

18 Comments

This week has been a very interesting week for campaigners. Many of you might have heard that Greenpeace has hit hard on Nestle and its KitKat product with allegations that Nestlé SA buys palm oil from companies destroying the Indonesian rain forests in order to plant oil palms. The video it self is very graphic but brings the point across like not many videos I have seen.

Here is the video (but if you can’t see blood do not watch this):

Have a break? from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo.

My opinion and criticism
I like the fact that Greenpeace is trying to make the world a better place and is going against the horrible palm oil practices. But there are limits how far to go. And I believe that this campaign video is going just a little bit to far and is missing a key ingredient.

I am not talking about the fact that you are seeing blood or anything similar but I am skeptical about the actual information aspect of all of this. This video in my opinion can be compared to the doom and gloom climate change ads and videos that we all hate. They are graphic but they do not really serve the purpose of being informative and promoting the most effective action by everyone to change our ways.

The same in my opinion is true for this Greenpeace camkitkat What the Greenpeace Nestle KitKat campaign is missing paign video. Instead of being overly graphic and shocking they should have included more context and information on which we could all act on. And not just stop buying KitKat and boycotting Nestle. We as stakeholders need to understand the overall circumstances in order to be able to make a sound judgment in my opinion. We need to know the reason why palm oil is so popular, what the situation in the producing countries is, what the Nestle point of view for not keeping control of its supply chain is, etc. This is what Greenpeace should have focused on.

So my message to Greenpeace is: Consumer activism is good but for the sake of transparency, progress and corporate accountability please also provide more information on how to solve this dilemma from a company perspective. This campaign is just like the campaigns of the past. It is time to evolve in my opinion, time to make these campaigns more effective for us as stakeholders and the involved companies.

Picture Credit: psd

All is not well in the Apple world!

February 28, 20101:08 pm

4 Comments

We all love Apple with its modern and innovative products – but some recent news about the lack of stakeholder feedback and irresponsible business practices are making me wonder whether Apple is not willing to listen and act anymore with regards to Sustainability and CSR?
apple command All is not well in the Apple world!These two recent articles raise big question marks about the way Apple is conducting its business and whether to buy Apple products in the future.

Article 1 – Apple Focuses on Green at Shareholder Meeting
This sounds like a good business practice but the important part of the article to consider here is this paragraph:
‘Voted down were two shareholder proposals, each of which the board recommended voting against. The first was a proposal for Apple to prepare a “sustainability” report on the company’s environmental policies and the effects that climate change may have on the company’s competitiveness; the board’s position was that Apple “is already substantially fulfilling–and in many respects exceeding–the request for information [in the proposal].” The second was a proposal to amend the company’s bylaws to establish a board-of-directors sustainability committee to “ensure [Apple's] sustained viability” in the face of “changing conditions and knowledge of the natural environment, including…natural resource limitations, energy use, waste disposal, and climate change.” The board’s position was, again, that management was performing “exceptionally well in this area” and thus such a committee was unnecessary. (You can read Apple’s 2010 proxy statement for all the details of these proposals.)’

Article 2 – Apple admits using child labor
The point here is that Apple still uses the factories that they know uses child labor. This is totally unacceptable in my opinion.

Is Apple is getting to big and confident as an organization to not be responsive to the stakeholder demands and not practice responsible business practice? Is their thinking that the Apple products are just so sustainable that they do not need to do the same actions, etc. as their industry competitors?

If this is really the case then I am hugely disappointed by Apple and will reconsider to actually use their products in the future. Do not get me wrong. I love my Apple products but this will make no difference to me if they are acting irresponsible in terms of business practice.

Picture Credit: arquera