Greenpeace and the future

The name Greenpeace has always conjured up some form of image in the minds of those people who know roughly what the organisation does - whether that might be as the guiding light of modern environmental activism, people zipping about seas in rigid inflatables - or even as mad tree huggers.

There has always been plenty of discussion about how the organisation operates and plenty of 'ex' activists who have gone off in different directions - or believe the organisation has lost its way and want to get something done about it.

So, this article in yesterday's independent, where former Greenpeace captain, John Castel, explains what he feels are the group's current shortcomings, comes as no great surprise.

The article does have the rather scary title 'Greenpeace at war' without explaining or giving any relevance to that comment in the article, which seems like a standard sub editor's flight of fancy, however Castel touches nerves here and no mistake.

It's worth a read, however to sum up, he thinks the organisation has gone been eaten-out from within by a lack of democracy and turned into an inefficient, pen-pushing, computer-gazing, corporate deal-doing bloater - losing the vision, spark and drive, indeed the humanity, that always made it so practical and effective in its approaches to getting things done.

I had the good fortune to be involved with Greenpeace for much of the 1990s and saw the organisation change from what Castel says he saw at the end of the '70s into roughly what he says it has become. The main reason, as far as I am aware, Greenpeace changed, was to be more effective in getting things done - not less. The group was often criticised for being too 'anti' things - "don't do this" - and took a positive step in the early '90s to position itself as providing solutions to the problems it was highlighting - "Don't do that - do this instead".

One of the first examples of this was the massively successful 'Greenfreeze' campaign started in 1992, which has revolutionised much of the world's refrigeration industry by showing a domestic refrigerator could be made successfully without using ozone and climate damaging CFCs, HFCs and HCFCs.

Greenpeace has always had a strong structure to preserve its core values, not the least of which is NVDA - Non-Violent Direct Action. I remember with no small amount of amazement on my first 'action', in 1993, that it was possible several hundred people could dress up in black suits and skull masks and 'die' in Whitehall, entirely blocking all lanes across from Downing Street (some photos here) - and for the Metropolitan Police to take the phone call just as it started, to inform them it was Greenpeace, and let the event play out unhindered.

That kind of relationship with the authorities took a lot of work and a lot of earning - and in many countries it's not easy. Not many groups can put that many people together in one place and say with any degree of certainty that people have a) been fairly carefully selected or at least have had people vouch for them and b) have received, in most cases, fairly substantial training in how to act, through to what to do if you get arrested. It's why Greenpeace never organises mass protests - it's too easy for people with their own agendas to kick off. Not good.

By the mid-'90s Greenpeace was almost becoming a victim of its own success. There were so many media-savvy campaigns that I remember it became common for much time and effort to put into planning, when all it eventually took was a phone call to the company concerned who would promptly cave in and say - "What do you want us to do?"

In addition to its other campaigning, it instigated Greenpeace Business to further open, two-way dialogue with companies, which continues to be successful today.

Later in the 1990s there was a swing away from nurturing the grass-roots support and involvement that had been built up for years and many people, myself included, rue that for being the moment Greenpeace became too commercial for its own good. We felt it was taking the 'heart' out its values.

As the 'charity sector' has increasingly become big business on its own this is a swing that has been prevalent over the last ten years with most of the big names at least.

Treat working for these organisations as just a step in a career or just like any other job, and you run a much greater risk of removing the fundamental passion required.

So is there hope for Greenpeace? Does it need to change? Yes on both counts. Would we be worse off if they didn't exist? Absolutely. If anything, I think Greenpeace has ended up with too many hats and that is always going to be difficult for an organisation with good intentions and, frankly, not a lot of money. It tries very much to be all things to all people to get the results it wants.

To me, that doesn't mean they have totally lost the plot - it means we need a lot more Greenpeaces to get everything done. There's a lot to sort out.

All images in this post Copyright Greenpeace