Dear Friends,

The campaign Dow has undertaken around the issue of water with a virtual conference featuring “60 leading thinkers as they explore the future of water” raises the issue of whether doing good needs to be based on a history of being good. I don’t know where you come down on this issue, but the money large corporations are spreading around and the extensive social media campaigns they are conducting, are to my eye not very honest, nor informative, nor very personal.  BP is spending wads of money saying the Gulf is “nearly back to normal.”  The research shows that “consumers” are not convinced, but have short memories, so companies that aren’t being good, but do good are counting on our short attention spans and poor memories.

I had been asked to participate, I did my sixty seconds of video and the feedback was it wasn’t personal enough and was offered a do-over.  I thought that odd at the time because I read all the material they sent, I have a long history as a corporate marketing person, and, I prepared for it.  But.

Meanwhile, Anna Lappe a leading expert on sustainability and a national bestselling author, most recently of Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, was much more aggressive than I and produced her own video (I did my video interview over Skype so do not have access to it) and when rejected decided to take some action. She is a founding principal of the Small Planet Institute and Small Planet Fund and an active board member of Rainforest Action Network.  Here is her press release. In my next blog post, I will publish the letter I wrote DOW when declining a second opportunity.

P.S. Here is the link to the virtual conference on water campaign and her is the link to her video on EarthSayers.tv

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 6, 2011

Dow Chemical Greenwashing Campaign Exposed

Watch the Video America’s Largest Chemical Maker Doesn’t Want You to See

When a Dow Chemical PR firm asked author Anna Lappé to contribute a video about the future of water for Dow’s flashy new “virtual conference” called “The Future We Create,” she was delighted to provide them with exactly what they had asked for.

In her 60-second submission, Lappé stressed that toxic chemicals are one of the biggest global threats to water and people, and that Dow itself is one of the biggest sources of such threats. The PR company swiftly rejected the video, but they didn’t give up: they asked Lappé to record a new video. “Dow, as a huge corporation with resources, is sponsoring that [“Future We Create”] effort, which you have to admit is pretty cool,” the PR firm wrote to Lappé.

“What would be pretty cool,” Lappé replied, “would be if the company put even a fraction of the resources it spends on marketing into cleaning up communities whose water it has polluted.”

Lappé is launching her rejected video today on a YouTube channel that will also include videos from the public about the future they’d like to create.

At the same time Dow launches their “virtual conference,” the company is actively fighting multiple lawsuits from communities—including Dow’s own hometown of Midland, Michigan—alleging the company has polluted their water. More information on Dow’s history of water contamination, and on organizations fighting for clean water, will shortly be available at www.afuturewecreate.com.

“The future we should be creating is one in which no one has to worry about whether the water they drink is tainted by carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, or neurotoxins manufactured by Dow,” said Lappé.

The Yes Lab, a project of The Yes Men that helps activist groups carry out media-getting creative actions on their own, assisted Lappé in developing her response. For more information or for interviews, please contact Anna Lappé, Small Planet Institute, 917-476-4896, anna@smallplanet.org (website: www.smallplanet.org).