"Landep News"
Friend of The Earth France or Les Amis de la Terre in cooperation with Peuples Soldaires and CRID has released the 2010 Pinocchio Awards. The awards are given to companies voted to be most destructive to the environment while branding themselves either through advertising or other media as a environmentally responsible companies.
There are three categories available for the awards, environment, human rights and green washing. The green washing category is reserved for companies that uses mislead advertisement to encourage customers to use their services because they are environmentally responsible companies.
The voted is gathered through Prix Pinocchio website from pre selected nominee which this year include some of the biggest companies such as Alstom, AXA, Total and Credit Agricole.
The winner for Human Rights category was awarded to Sosucam Cameroon which is a subsidiary of SOMDIAA which is a subsidiary of French giant Jl Vilgrain for signing a two 99 year lease of around 22,000 hectare to expand its sugar cane production and processing capabilities. The first lease has compensation terms on it that was never paid, while the second lease pay about EUR 5 per family per year in compensation. SOMDIA on the other hand has its value stated on its website “As a player in the agro-industry we are responsible not only for our products but also for the conditions under which they are produced”
For Environment category the winner is Eramet, another giant French mining company which own Weda Bay Nickel in Halmahera Indonesia. Weda Bay Nickel has some 76 thousand hectare of concession area. Out of those concession, only 3,500 hectares are open areas while the rest are tropical forest, home to some of the rarest and also endangered bird and amphibian species in the world. Weda Bay extracted almost 17 million ton of soil every year. Eramet, recently received loan guarantee from the World Bank is about to expand its operation.
The Green Washing category awarded to Credit Agricole which has an ad campaign “Its Time for Green banking” aired in more than 80 countries except strangely France and the US. The ad shows a disastrous world complete with traffics, fumes, and garbage later followed by Sean Connery (70s James Bond) advising people to use their “common sense”, then everything is okay. The reality however, Credit Agricole is responsible for financing project which in turn responsible for around 200 million tons of CO2 emission in 2005. Credit Agricola also signed an agreement to finance a 4,800 MW coal powered plant Medupi mega in South Africa which is the largest dry-cooled coal fired power station in the world and a pulp mill in Uruguay border which was deemed to have not followed procedural obligation by the International Court of Justice.
Friends of the Earth and their partners held annually Pinocchio Award for Sustainable Development to protest the dismal record of multinationals in economic, environmental and social. After the disappointing performance of the Grenelle Environnement, an open multi-party debate in France that brings together representatives of national and local government and organizations (industry, labour, professional associations, non-governmental organizations) on an equal footing, with goal of unifying a position on a specific theme. The roundtable however, struggles to frame a binding activities for multinational enterprises.
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