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December 08, 2006
Dow, Bhopal, and corporate social responsibility
Shel Holtz, Internet Finance, December 7, 2006
Dow's view of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) is pretty easy to find on the companys website, only two clicks from the home page.
There, the company covers charitable giving, education, community involvement, and worldwide social investments. On the social responsibility landing page, the company points with justifiable pride to its foundation, which contributes more than $18 million each year to education and charitable institutions in the communities where the company does business.
A search of the entire Dow site for the term "Bhopal," however, produces only a single result, the 2003 Global Public Report, available in PDF.
That's pertinent because in 2001, Dow bought Union Carbide, the company whose Bhopal chemical plant leak resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 people in 1984. In addition to Union Carbide's assets, Dow also acquired its liabilities, which include a city where the drinking water is reportedly still contaminated as a result of the disaster.
Dow recently undertook a public relations campaign, "The Human Element," that is costing the company a reported $30 million. The campaign (according to a news release from the Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire) focuses on the company's "engagement and accountability for public health and clean water around the world":
"Yet in Bhopal, arguably Down's worst legacy issue, the company still refuses to release the makeup of chemical compounds that poisoned people 22 years ago and has not addressed water contamination issues associated with the factory site."
That campaign evidently motivated a group of Dow shareholders to file a resolution asking it to address the Bhopal issues. And this is no minority activist group. Representing more than $275 million worth of stock, the group is led by the New York City Pension Funds and the New York State Common Retirement Fund, along with Amnesty International USA. The resolution was filed by Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., on behalf of the retirement funds for New York City employees, teachers, firemen and police.
The resolution was filed Dec. 1; the 22nd anniversary of the disaster was commemorated on Dec. 3.
The stature of the New York pension organizaton (which boasts assets of more than $140 billion) should make organizations touting their CSR efforts sit up and take notice. Shining the light on donations is great, but Dow should have known that Bhopal hung over the company like a noxious chemical cloud. Sweeping the issue under the rug won't cut it in an era when traditional investors like NYPERS look to do business with companies that behave in an ethical and transparent manner. And launching a high-profile PR campaign focusing on water quality while declining to answer questions about water issues in Bhopal just exacerbates the situation.
Dow could have avoided the negative publicity in any number of ways: Deal with the Bhopal water issues, hold off on a water-focused PR campaign, reach out to NGOs like Amnesty International, which produced a damning report on the legacy Dow inherited, or all of the above.
Instead, Dow is now looking at more than 1,000 blog posts, according to Technorati, that shift focus away from the company's noble efforts in other locales and shine it on Bhopal and the human suffering that continues there today.
There's a lesson here for PR pros. The news release concludes, "The company needs to match the sentiment of the 'Human Element' campaign with real action in Bhopal, or the potential liability it faces is likely to increase." Before launching any campaign, make sure there are no skeletons in your or your client's closet that could turn a positive message into an issues management exercise.
Posted by bhola at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)
Renowned cancer scientist was paid by chemical firm for 20 years
A world-famous British scientist failed to disclose that he held a paid consultancy with a chemical company for more than 20 years while investigating cancer risks in the industry, the Guardian can reveal.
Sir Richard Doll, the celebrated epidemiologist who established that smoking causes lung cancer, was receiving a consultancy fee of $1,500 a day in the mid-1980s from Monsanto, then a major chemical company and now better known for its GM crops business.
While he was being paid by Monsanto, Sir Richard wrote to a royal Australian commission investigating the potential cancer-causing properties of Agent Orange, made by Monsanto and used by the US in the Vietnam war. Sir Richard said there was no evidence that the chemical caused cancer.
Documents seen by the Guardian reveal that Sir Richard was also paid a £15,000 fee by the Chemical Manufacturers Association and two other major companies, Dow Chemicals and ICI, for a review that largely cleared vinyl chloride, used in plastics, of any link with cancers apart from liver cancer - a conclusion with which the World Health Organisation disagrees. Sir Richard's review was used by the manufacturers' trade association to defend the chemical for more than a decade.
The revelations will dismay scientists and other admirers of Sir Richard's pioneering work and fuel a rift between the majority who support his view that the evidence shows cancer is a product of modern lifestyles and those environmentalists who argue that chemicals and pollution must be to blame for soaring cancer rates.
Yesterday Sir Richard Peto, the Oxford-based epidemiologist who worked closely with him, said the allegations came from those who wanted to damage Sir Richard's reputation for their own reasons. Sir Richard had always been open about his links with industry and gave all his fees to Green College, Oxford, the postgraduate institution he founded, he said.
Professor John Toy, medical director of Cancer Research UK, which funded much of Sir Richard's work, said times had changed and the accusations must be put into context. "Richard Doll's lifelong service to public health has saved millions of lives. His pioneering work demonstrated the link between smoking and lung cancer and paved the way towards current efforts to reduce tobacco's death toll," he said. "In the days he was publishing it was not automatic for potential conflicts of interest to be declared in scientific papers."
But a Swedish professor who believes that some of Sir Richard's work has led to the underestimation of the role of chemicals in causing cancers said that transparency was all-important. "It's OK for any scientist to be a consultant to anybody, but then this should be reported in the papers that you publish," said Lennart Hardell of University Hospital, Orebro.
Sir Richard died last year. Among his papers in the Wellcome Foundation library archive is a contract he signed with Monsanto. Dated April 29 1986, it extends for a year the consulting agreement that began on May 10 1979 and offers improved terms. "During the one-year period of this extension your consulting fee shall be $1,500 per day," it says.
Monsanto said yesterday it did not know how much work Sir Richard did for the company, but said he was an expert witness for Solutia, a chemical business spun off from Monsanto, as recently as 2000.
Posted by bhola at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2006
Dow shareholders urge management to solve problems of Bhopal's gas-hit victims
Pervez Bari, Indian Muslims Info, December 7, 2006
Bhopal, Dec 7(IndianMuslims.info) In the face of a new public relations campaign by Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) claiming the company is addressing global public health and water problems, Dow shareholders representing more than $ 278 million announced on Friday that they have filed a resolution with the company requesting that it address outstanding issues resulting from the Union Carbide (UC) chemical facility explosion in Bhopal, the capital town of central Indian province Madhya Pradesh, on the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, a Press Release issued by Amnesty International USA said.
Filed by the New York City Pension Funds (NYCERS), the New York State Common Retirement Fund (NYSCRF), and Amnesty International USA, the resolution requests that Dow provide its shareholders with a description of any new steps taken by management to address social and environmental concerns of survivors of the UC disaster in Bhopal. Shareholders filing the resolution are not aware of any efforts by the company to address the issues in Bhopal and filed the resolution to assess whether the promises of the new PR program are being fulfilled in Bhopal.
It may be mentioned here that the Union Carbide became a fully owned subsidiary of Dow in 2001. Pollution continues to contaminate drinking water, and combined with long term effects of the disaster, has led to serious health problems for more than 100,000 people of Bhopal, the release said.
In its Global Public Report, Dow reports $ 5.1 billion in sales from the Asia Pacific region. New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., said, “We take our fiduciary responsibilities seriously, and often that requires us to look beyond the information that a company provides us. Dow has claimed for years that outstanding issues in Bhopal are not material to the company’s success, but the facts tell a different story. It is in the long-term interest of shareholders for Dow to address potential liabilities in Bhopal, rather than allow them to impact our company’s reputation and ability to expand into new markets.”
The release said the Dow Chemical resolution on Bhopal was filed by Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., on behalf of The New York City Employees Retirement System, the New York City Teachers Retirement System, the New York City Fire Department Pension Fund, the New York City Police Pension Fund, and the New York City Board of Education Retirement System, with total assets of $96 billion. The New York State Common Retirement Fund’s total assets are $146 billion.
Shareholders will have the opportunity to vote on the Bhopal resolution at the Dow’s Annual Meeting in May 2007.
Earlier this year, Dow committed more than $30 million to a global public relations campaign – coined “The Human Element” – asserting the company’s engagement and accountability for public health and clean water around the world. Yet in Bhopal, arguably Dow’s worst legacy issue, the company still refuses to release the makeup of chemical compounds that poisoned people 22 years ago and has not addressed water contamination associated with the factory site.
According to Dow’s own statements, the ad campaign will expand beyond paid media, and will include outreach to policy leaders, NGOs, and Dow communities. This included a recent presentation to leaders at the United Nations, where CEO Andrew Liveris pledged to create clean water supplies around the world, saying, “… more than a billion people are in peril every day because they do not have enough water or the water they have is unhealthy. Lack of clean water is the single largest cause of disease in the world and more than 4,500 children die each day because of it.”
But the company’s outreach has not included Amnesty International – the world’s largest human rights organization – despite repeated attempts by the organization to engage the company since the release of the 2004 report, “Clouds of Injustice: Bhopal Disaster 20 years on.”
Posted by bhola at 07:29 PM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2006
"Book answers questions about pesticide leak".
Or to rephrase: on the 22nd Anniversary ex-Union Carbide man releases book repeating Carbide's endlessly discredited sabotage claims and Dow's hometown paper dutifully parrots company spin
Kathie Marchlewski, Midland Daily News, December 3, 2006
It was just after midnight, now 22 years ago, that a gas leak in Bhopal, India killed thousands and changed the lives of thousands more forever. There are still many suffering lingering health effects, and here in the U.S., Union Carbide and its now-parent company face ongoing blame and criticism for the event.
A new book, released in conjunction with the tragedy's anniversary Dec. 3 and "The Black Box of Bhopal: A Closer Look at the World's Deadliest Industrial Disaster," challenges the public's assumptions about the event and answers questions previously unanswered.
Author Dr. Themistocles D'Silva, a 1993 retiree of Union Carbide, was a member of the scientific team commissioned to investigate the cause of the deadly gas leak. Shortly after his retirement in 1993, he began collecting information for the book, published in September by Trafford Publishing.
"I wanted to place on record the real facts about the disaster and to destroy the perceptions and myths created from misinformation or lack of information," D'Silva said.
While US-based Union Carbide, and its now-owner The Dow Chemical Co. have been primary targets for blame in the incident, D'Silva also analyzes the role of the Indian government, which was closely involved in the planning, construction of the plant in Bhopal. He points out that the Bhopal plant was constructed by Indian engineers with the help of Indian consultants, as mandated by the government.
"The terms of the agreement and the country's laws precluded any involvement by the foreign collaborator in the operation of the plant or issues of quality control," he said.
And while D'Silva is a Union Carbide retiree, the book is an independent effort and doesn't make light of the tragic problem. He describes in detail the confusion, mass hysteria and panic of Bhopalis fleeing the gas cloud, and describes the details of deaths.
Sources for the book include D'Silva's own research and interviews, as well as news reports, court and otherwise public documents. Union Carbide declined to provide documents except those which had already been made public.
But D'Silva dissects events up to and after the disaster, provides details of the plant and its operation and explores the investigations into the disaster's cause.
He also criticizes the handling of investigations. According to D'Silva's research, Union Carbide investigators also were not allowed to carry out an open investigation following the disaster.
"It was controlled by the government agencies," he said. "The book exposes the flaws in the government's scientific report, which resulted from their investigation."
D'Silva also proposes theories, based on UC forensic studies, on how the gas leak occurred, specifically, how it is that the 120 to 240 gallons of water entered a chemical storage tank, causing the reaction which perpetuated the leak.
"This is unlike any other book," D'Silva said. "It discloses new information supported with primary documents - correspondence between government agencies and the Indian company, which establishes the question of ownership and responsibility."
D'Silva, is a recognized research scientist who holds over 65 patents and is also the author of several scientific publications.
For more information on the book, or to purchase it for $19.50, visit www.trafford.com/06-0167.
Posted by bhola at 06:12 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2006
Dow gets its knickers in a twist
Sarvadarshi Gupta, Midland Michigan, November 21, 2006
A report on a student protest that ruined the day of Dow recruiters at MIT, has so upset the reptiles in the Dow boardroom that they nominated their jaded PR man, the unfortunately named Tomm Sprick, to write a rebuttal. But Tomm, darlin' man, this isn't up to your usual standard. It shows clear signs of tiredness and confusion. When you write for example, "Union Carbide continues to have the deepest sympathy and compassion for the victims and their families", it begs the question, in that case why doesn't it clean up its factory in Bhopal, which was abandoned full of lethal toxins which have poisoned the drinking water of 20,000 people? And why does it continue to refuse to appear in the Indian court where it (the corporation) faces criminal charges of culpable homicide and other offences? After that opening, Sprick old love, the rest of your weary nonsense is pointless.
Read Sprick's drivel below:
Dow's involvment in Bhopal incident minimal
Regarding "Protestors decry DOW at career fair" Nov. 3
Your story is another example of how many facts have been forgotten about the Bhopal tragedy in the past 22 years and how much misinformation is being disseminated by certain parties. Union Carbide continues to have the deepest sympathy and compassion for the victims and their families. UC took moral responsibility for the tragedy immediately after it occurred, as evidenced by our actions that are detailed on our Web site: www.bhopal.com.
Union Carbide India Limited designed and constructed the plant in the late 1970s on land leased by the State Government of Madhya Pradesh. UCIL managed and ran the plant -- not Union Carbide, not Dow Chemical and certainly not Dow-Corning. UC merged with Dow Chemical in 2002, long after the tragedy occurred (1984) and long after UC, UCIL and the Government of India arrived at a $470-million settlement (1989). Dow Chemical never owned, operated, took over or had any responsibility for the Bhopal plant.
By passing the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief Act (1985), the Indian government deemed to represent all claimants in the case. And, under the settlement terms, the government would disburse any money and provide medical coverage to Bhopal citizens in the event of future illnesses. The former has taken some time, however. Recent media reports said all initial compensation claims only now have been cleared. This could mean the estimated $390 million still in the settlement fund as of 2004 might have finally been distributed.
Concerning site clean up, the state government took possession of the facility in 1998 and publicly assumed responsibility for any further remediation. This occurred after UCIL and its successor company spent more than $2 million on clean-up work.
Regarding health claims, the Hindustan Times reported a National Institute of Occupational Health study that questions voluntary organizations' fears about water contamination in/around the plant. The article said "the state government has filed the NIOH report in the High Court in support of its contention that hazardous wastes lying in the Union Carbide were not contaminating water." The NIOH study apparently supports earlier ones by India's National Environmental Engineering Research Institute and the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board.
The facts surrounding the tragedy and wherein responsibilities truly lie are easily discernible.
Tomm F. Sprick
Director
Union Carbide Information Center
Posted by bhola at 09:14 PM | Comments (0)