Shell Game?
In addition to the environmentalists, politicians, and scientists who will gather next week in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, another constituency will be amply represented — business interests. Many high-profile companies plan to use the summit to burnish their environmental images and make the case that principles and profits can mix. Although some environmentalists believes a number of companies are genuinely committed to cleaning up their acts, others say Big Business is hijacking the summit to push its own agenda: self-regulation and voluntary corporate responsibility over government regulation. Companies like Shell Oil, which is expected to have a large presence at the summit, argue that self-policing ultimately works better than mandatory guidelines, but most enviros disagree. “It needs to be up to much more than the whim of a chief executive as to whether corporations engage in sustainable development,” said Matt Phillips of Friends of the Earth International.