Time Magazine on the Rising Tide
of Protests Against Corporations

How To Talk To Protesters

http://www.time.com/time/global/august/agenda.html

Noisy demonstrations against global firms are here to stay. And savvy CEOs
are listening to protest-group leaders

By Michael Elliott
August 5, 2001

A few years ago, Dr. Daniel Vasella, the Swiss CEO of pharmaceutical giant
Novartis, told an American interviewer that his firm was going to have to
spend a lot more time talking to NGOs. The journalist's response: "What's an
NGO?" Let's hope he knows now. NGOs--nongovernmental organizations--
have won significant influence over global companies. The demonstrations against
global capitalism at the G-8 Summit in Genoa were the latest manifestation
of a trend that--mostly quietly and behind the scenes--is defining our age.
From Home Depot (criticized for its use of tropical hardwoods) to Starbucks
(attacked for the treatment of workers on coffee plantations), from Big Oil
(a perennial target for environmentalists) to tuna canners (think dolphins),
companies are increasingly changing their business practices when pressured
by activists.

Confrontation between activists and businesses isn't inevitable. Indeed, in
the past few years, companies from Shell to papermaker Westvaco have found
common ground with environmental groups. In the wake of the riots in Genoa,
I asked some smart observers of the scene how to make those relationships
work. Their advice:

FIRST, ACCEPT THAT THERE'S NO GOING BACK. Manny Amadi, CEO
of Cause & Effect Marketing in London, says companies can no longer expect
to escape scrutiny from activists. Remembering the worldwide damage to its
reputation that Shell suffered because of its troubles a few years ago in the Niger
delta, of all unlikely places, he says, "Nobody can hide." But Kathy Bloomgarden,
CEO of New York City-based public relations consultancy Ruder-Finn, says few
companies have yet acknowledged this "profound change in our society."

GOOD WORKS AREN'T ENOUGH. "You can't buy corporate social
responsibility," says Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman Public
Relations Worldwide in New York City. "You have to do it." Amadi argues that
many American companies confuse social responsibility with philanthropy. Nike
long prided itself on writing checks to charities in the Pacific Northwest.
But for a global brand, that wasn't enough. When activists attacked the
company because of working conditions in its Asian factories, says Amadi, a
company that had thought of itself as a "good guy" had to rethink its game.

KNOW WHOM YOU ARE TALKING TO. Vasella divides organizations
into those that genuinely want a dialogue with his drug company--he mentions
the famine-relief group Oxfam--and those, like many animal-rights activists,
that don't. "Don't try to convert the unconvertible," he counsels. Talk to
the "decent people" who respect different points of view. From the other
side, Charles Secrett, executive director of Friends of the Earth UK,
concedes that some activists believe talking to corporations is a sellout
and only violent revolution will change the world.

THINK GLOBALLY. THE ACTIVISTS DO. Bloomgarden says the
Internet makes it possible to "organize a global community around a certain
issue in a split second." In particular, if you're an American firm, listen to what
your European divisions and partners say. Many of tomorrow's issues,
particularly in the fields of environmentalism and international human rights,
get an airing in Europe before they do in the U.S. Amadi observes that most
European companies have a broader view of who their stakeholders are;
American ones often concentrate solely on their stockholders. Secrett
fingers Monsanto, once a world leader in biotechnology, as a classic example
of a company that thought it could adopt American tactics and "resist and
fight" those Europeans who opposed genetically modified crops. (It lost.)

It's easy to dismiss petrol-bomb throwers, but when millions of young people
feel that the opportunities and costs of globalization aren't being fairly
distributed, companies that appear sympathetic may gain a competitive edge.
European and Japanese companies report that young graduates ask tough
questions about a potential employer's social practices. And European firms,
with their more developed commitment to social responsibility, Edelman
argues, are developing a "halo effect" among consumers worldwide. For
American firms competing globally, that's a reason to know what NGO stands
for.