Companies Should Stand Up To Shakedowns From Activists Like Greenpeace

When activist groups come knocking, the instinct for most corporate leaders is the well-worn path of least resistance. Appease, roll over, give in. Mollify the pot-banging rabble, and shoo them on to the next target down the street.

It’s a menacing pattern that has become so brazen; a common experience among so many leading global companies. The cycle of abuse works like this: use misleading campaigns, vague demands, constantly moving goalposts and an utter lack of scientific grounding, all while using “heated rhetoric” to induce donations. Companies are faced with a choice: capitulate or have their brand identity trashed with smears and false claims.

One of the largest and most aggressive of these groups, Greenpeace, uses a technique it calls “brand-jacking” to assume the identity of popular brands then steer them toward infamy. On its website, Greenpeace brags about how quickly even major companies capitulate, even though the disparagement campaigns remain in full view. Its list of targets reads like a who’s-who of leading companies.

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But when Greenpeace and its allies targeted our company, we decided to draw the line, unapologetically and forcefully defending our integrity.

The Crisis Creation Business

Our company, Resolute, is one of North America’s largest forest products producers...Everything we make relies on one of the world’s most renewable natural resources: trees. Yet despite the many North American and global awards we’ve won for our sustainability leadership, Resolute has been at the center of a cynical, multi-year attack campaign by large, well-funded activist organizations led by Greenpeace and its allies.

While there are conscientious non-governmental organizations with a virtuous cause, others like Greenpeace and its allies exist solely to employ pressure tactics and fundraise off garish publicity stunts. They are, quite simply, in the crisis creation business.

That’s precisely why we felt compelled to stand up to the eco bullies in the first place. It’s one thing for activist groups to participate in the discourse. But it’s quite another to brazenly threaten us and our customers with a nebulous list of imagined crimes that have no measurable, accountable connection to reality. But that’s just the model Greenpeace and partner groups rely on to sustain the self-perpetuating fundraising juggernaut they’ve become.

To give you a sense of what I’m talking about, worldwide, just considering Greenpeace alone, total revenues in 2014 were in excess of €297 million, equivalent at the time to U.S. $409 million. More than one third of that amount—U.S. $147 million—was eaten by “fundraising expenditures” with another U.S. $63 million going to salaries, benefits, and operating costs.

That doesn’t even include the cost of maintaining and operating a big box of expensive, carbon-emitting corporate toys that include helicopters and a small fleet. To cover this much overhead, they have no choice but to use their remaining budget for campaigns with the highest proven fundraising potential.

The pattern of engagement is always the same because most activist campaigns run using the same playbook, which can include tactics like impersonating employees, misrepresenting or doctoring photographs, an endless supply of silly publicity stunts, and selectively using pseudo-scientific findings. Greenpeace accidentally drew the curtain back on these tactics a few years ago when they famously circulated an unfinished activist “fact sheet” stating, “Fill in alarmist and armageddonist factoid here.”

Appeasement Only Expands Their Power

For too many executives, the goal in dealing with bad actors like this is to appease and accommodate, to avoid any hint of controversy, to keep the target off their backs. Never mind that irresponsible activists are making up facts or acting for unprincipled and self-serving motives. It’s easier to give in, pay up, and appease.

But there is no substitute for doing the right thing. In this case, “not to condemn is to condone.” As business leaders, we have a collective responsibility not only to protect the future of our companies, but also to defend the long-term futures of our home communities and the livelihoods of our employees. These are some of the cornerstone principles of good corporate governance.

That’s why we sued Greenpeace and its allies last May under federal RICO laws. As tends to happen with bullies, as soon as we forced them to back up their claims, they are already starting to change their tune. After years of claiming Resolute “destroyed forests,” for instance, Greenpeace and its partners now admit in court filings that this accusation was “figurative rather than literal,” “rhetorical hyperbole,” and “non-verifiable statements of subjective opinion.”

Greenpeace and their allies have naturally resorted to rhetorical contortions to explain these sudden reversals, including claiming the mantle of free speech martyrs. It’s unlikely to work. False statements knowingly made are not free speech in a court of law or public opinion. Naturally, Greenpeace sent a fundraising email to its followers calling our litigation “the biggest threat in [our] 45-year history.” It followed up last week with a fundraising video saying the court action could “sue Greenpeace out of existence.”

A great and diverse range of stakeholders and partners have publicly spoken out to support Resolute’s principled position, from unions and workers, regional and national elected officials, First Nations aboriginal communities, and ordinary citizens. They have written letters, engaged in direct mail campaigns, participated in town hall meetings, and even demonstrated in the streets. Impressively, more than 500 municipalities have gone on record, formally taking a stand against activist misinformation.

Resolute is standing with our stakeholders and partners because it’s a moral and ethical obligation. We’re surely not alone. Other companies have demonstrated their own commitment to responsible and sustainable performance and they too should demonstrate the courage of their convictions.

 

Seth Kursman,Vice President of Communications, Sustainability & Government Affairs at Resolute Forest Products, The Federalist (5/15/2017)

 

 

Greenpeace admits its attacks on Resolute were ‘non-verifiable statements of subjective opinion’

Greenpeace and its allies have been waging a campaign based on the false claim that Resolute Forest Products is "destroying" the boreal forest. Now, they're admitting that their campaign amounts to "hyperbole" that doesn't adhere to “strict literalisms or scientific precision". In other words, exaggerations and lies. 

Greenpeace publicly insists its claims are factual, but now, in formal legal filings in US Federal Court, calls its campaign more “figurative than literal” and blames the public for believing their “non-verifiable subjective opinion[s].” 

Greenpeace is using claims about Resolute that it admits are not true to raise money from unaware donors. We have an obligation to set the record straight. 

At Last, Greenpeace Admits to ‘Rhetorical Hyperbole’

A few years ago Greenpeace and allied groups chose my company, Resolute, Canada’s largest forest-products company, to be their next victim.

They compiled a litany of outlandish assertions: We were “forest destroyers,” for example, aggravating climate change, and causing a “caribou death spiral and extinction” in Canada’s boreal habitat. Greenpeace harassed companies we do business with, threatening them with the same sort of smear campaign that they launched against us and even instigating cyber-attacks on their websites. And they bragged about the damage — $100 million, in Canadian dollars — that they claimed to have inflicted on our business.

They were lying about our forestry practices, so we did something that none of the group’s other targets have yet found the wherewithal to do: We sued them, in Canada, for defamation and intentional interference with economic relations, and in the United States under RICO statutes.

A funny thing happened when Greenpeace and allies were forced to account for their claims in court. They started changing their tune. Their condemnations of our forestry practices “do not hew to strict literalism or scientific precision,” as they concede in their latest legal filings. Their accusations against Resolute were instead “hyperbole,” “heated rhetoric,” and “non-verifiable statements of subjective opinion” that should not be taken “literally” or expose them to any legal liability. These are sober admissions after years of irresponsible attacks.  

No “forest loss” was caused by Resolute, the groups concede — now that they are being held accountable. Of course, these late admissions are consistent with the findings of just about every independent journalist and commentator who has covered the dispute, from the Wall Street Journal editorial board to Enquête, a Canadian version, roughly, of 60 Minutes. Even Steve Forbes weighed in, calling our lawsuit “an outstanding example of how unfairly attacked companies should respond.” Peter Reich, one of the world’s leading forest ecologists, has said that Greenpeace has “a fundamental disregard for scientific reality.”

Finally hearing the truth from Greenpeace itself is vindication, even if it comes in the form of a tortured defense of its actions, rather than a simple apology. Remarkably, despite admitting in court that its rhetoric against Resolute is not true, Greenpeace continues to disparage us publicly and privately. Just a few weeks ago, we sent it a cease-and-desist letter demanding that it stop sending to our customers threatening letters accusing us of the “destruction of forests in Quebec and Ontario.”

Some news outlets in the United States have filed amicus briefs on behalf of Greenpeace, on free-speech grounds. But freedom of speech is not the same as libel and slander. And the public should ask the outlets when it can expect scrutinizing, critical coverage of what Greenpeace itself now admits are deceptive practices.

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So far they have acted with virtual impunity and profited handsomely. One Greenpeace executive was even caught laughing on camera when he was confronted on a leading broadcast program with photos of a forest, affected by a wildfire, that the group erroneously said was “destroyed” by Resolute. It was morally wrong and yet another example that, as Greenpeace puts it, “heated rhetoric is the coin of the realm.” 

For me, confronting this barrage of misinformation has been more than just about business ethics. It is very personal. I was raised in Quebec’s Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region, where my family has lived for generations. I harvested trees by hand to pay my way through school. Now 50 years later, those forest areas are again ready for harvest, and someday I will retire to this same land that my great-grandfather tilled.

Greenpeace is marauding not just our company but a way of life, one built on nurturing healthy forests that are the lifeblood of the people who live there. That’s why union leaders, small-business people, First Nations chiefs, and mayors and other government officials, of all political stripes, have written Greenpeace, imploring it to halt its campaign of misinformation. In nearly every instance, Greenpeace lacked the simple decency to respond, apparently indifferent to the human consequences of its actions.

Last summer, nearly 5,000 people marched through the streets of the small northern Quebec town of Saint-Félicien, demanding an end to Greenpeace’s disingenuous market campaign. Recognizing that the very viability of their communities are now held in the balance, local leaders have even “extended a hand” for eco-activists to have a dialogue with them. It is telling that Greenpeace neither showed up nor responded.

As a chief executive, I often meet and engage personally with our devoted employees at the local level, in the forests where they live and work. I know we share a common interest and a responsibility to sustain the forests for tomorrow. That’s why we’re not going to let Greenpeace get away with using “rhetorical hyperbole” to make false and damaging accusations from hundreds and thousands of miles away, in its glass-walled towers in Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Washington, D.C. 

We’re going to stand tall, both in public discourse and in the courts. For my part, my guiding hope is to return to the forest with the ability to face my neighbors, my family, and my community and tell them that I stood up and told the truth.

 

Richard Garneau, President & CEO of Resolute Forest Products, National Review Online (3/2/2017)

NRDC Attacks Harm boreal communities

NRDC recently posted the first of a six part blog series by its “Canada expert” Anthony Swift, an American attorney in Washington, DC. It is riddled with inaccuracies, misleading claims, and bias.

 Here are just a few of the most egregious examples:

Swift makes the assertion that the boreal “plays a significant role in helping to regulate the global climate by holding at bay massive amounts of greenhouse gases emissions.” 

Swift fails to mention that forest management actually enhances the boreal’s ability to absorb greenhouse gases, as recognized by the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change.

He also leaves out that Resolute has been an industry leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, cutting its carbon footprint by 73% since 2000.

Next, Swift purposefully conflates forestry terms, stating “logging plays a major role in the degradation [of the boreal forest].” 

What Swift calls ‘degradation’ includes natural disturbances like fires, insects, or disease, and is not synonymous with deforestation.

Less than 0.5% of Canada’s boreal forest is harvested each year and Canada’s annual deforestation rate is less than 0.02%.

He implies Resolute’s practices have “direly threatened woodland caribou” in the Canadian boreal. And later revisits the claim, bemoaning Resolute’s “lack of faith in following through on its commitment to ensure caribou survival.”

There are more caribou in Canada than deer, moose, and elk combined. With nearly 4 million caribou spread across the country, they represent the most abundant wild hoofed animal in Canada.

In fact, the majority of the herds in the provinces where Resolute operates are considered “as likely as not to be self-sustaining” or “likely to be self-sustaining.”

Swift asserts that “Resolute has chosen to challenge freedom of speech and undermine meaningful dialogue with stakeholders engaged in proactive conservation efforts.”

Freedom of speech is not a license to slander, libel and defame. By Greenpeace’s own admission in recent legal filings, their campaign in the boreal consists of “non-verifiable statements of subjunctive/ subjective opinion” and “rhetorical hyperbole.”

We have attempted to resolve misleading activist campaigns through open discussion and now are taking our case to court where a judge and jury can decide on the legality of the conduct of Greenpeace and like-minded activists.

Swift then suggests “Resolute has now overseen a 46 percent decrease in the area of its woodlands certified by FSC.”

NRDC is crediting Resolute with managing over 5.5 million hectares more than we ever have.  He also fails to note that we have discontinued management in a number of regions since 2012, as a result of mill closures, and therefore  have not pursued forest management certification in the forests supporting those former operations.

He then claims “Resolute’s actions have also led to its loss of recognition by leading conservation groups.”

Resolute’s award-winning forest management practices were recognized internationally throughout 2016.

Next, Swift implies Resolute’s award-winning forestry management has “resulted in an extraordinarily hostile approach to civil society organizations and reflect a striking unwillingness to positively engage to identify credible and lasting conservation solutions.”

Collaboration is a hallmark of Resolute, but is it for NRDC?

Our collaborative efforts with communities, First Nations, NGOs, and a range of other stakeholders are the cornerstone of Resolute’s business approach.

In contrast, provincial governments, forestry associations, union leaders, First Nations communities, and industry employees and retirees have condemned activist misinformation, and some have reached out to NRDC through open letters, asking to be part of the dialogue on these issues, only to receive no response.

Last summer, over 4,000 people marched through the streets of the small northern Quebec town of Saint-Félicien, demanding an end to misleading activist campaigns.

Towards the end the piece, Swift recommends Resolute  “drop its litigation against public interest organizations, cease its attacks on the FSC system, and ensure free, prior and informed consent from First Nations on their territories.”

Swift’s “recommendation” is the product of his own warped perception of the reality in the boreal.

In the wake of Greenpeace and its codefendants’ admissions that their campaign in the boreal “does not hew to strict literalism or scientific precision” NRDC has taken up the gauntlet and parroted baseless claims in a show of support (and a fundraising push).

Furthermore, Resolute remains a member of the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) and successfully maintained our existing FSC certifications throughout 2016.

Our certification in NW Ontario has been reinstated and we recently maintained our certification in the Abitibi region of Quebec. With our recent acquisition of a second sawmill in Senneterre (Quebec), Resolute has added nearly 300,000 ha of FSC certified forests to the area we manage, covering more land area than the state of Rhode Island. We continue to be one of the largest holders of FSC forest management certificates in North America.

One of the 17,000 First Nations employees in the forest products industry.

And finally, Resolute has extensive consultative and economic partnerships with First Nations and has created and sustained substantial benefits for these peoples through shared economic participation in the forestry business. We aren't aware of any similar actions from NRDC.

More than 17,000 Aboriginal people work in the forest products industry and the sector’s activities involve more than 1,400 Aboriginal businesses.

 

Swift finishes his “expert” opinion piece by stating that “It is time to get back to the bigger goal of conserving the boreal forest and a real commitment to sustainable forestry.”

The greatest threat to the boreal is misinformation spread by environmental activists, like Swift, who don’t respect the views and interests of those who live and work there.

The forests in which Resolute operates are, as international experts agree, among the very best-managed in the world.

 

UPDATE (2/27/2017): At the time of this posting, NRDC had offered no response to an open letter cosigned by the Québec Forest Industry Council, Ontario Forest Industries Association, and the Forest Products Association of Canada. On February 27th - three days after this response went live - NRDC offered a reply that failed to answer direct concerns and cited studies commissioned by NRDC themselves and by other environmental organizations. Additionally, Swift’s article was amended to reflect some of the sloppy errors noted in our treatment of his original post.