Action group disturbs Green-washing Week

On the second day of the EU's Green Week, an action group took the stage during a session of the 2-day policy summit titled ‘Pricing the earth: How business can protect and profit from biodiversity’. The 'summit' was organised by Friends of Europe, a corporate-sponsored think tank. The activists spread a red banner reading ‘Green Week is as green as this banner’ and one listing the companies behind Friends of Europe, including BP, Dow, Areva and Coca Cola. One member of the action group explained: "So far, business has done nothing to protect, but everything to exploit biodiversity. In this session, Coca Cola is invited to speak on how consumers can be persuaded to bear the costs for conserving biodiversity, while this company is making profits from destroying it”. Coca Cola had a seat on the panel because it sponsored the event. This year again, the European Commission gave Friends of Europe a high-profile platform that the think tank used for PR by its sponsors including Coca Cola. A number of NGOs including CEO had written to the Environment Commissioner to complain about this. Friends of Europe employees responded by inviting the activists into a dialogue which they refused, calling it an 'illegitimate event'. The action group was not removed by security, and therefore was able to stay in front of the stage a long time, getting applauses from parts of the audience. The Brussels Bubble briefly burst by this intervention of local Brussels people... See also the press release of the action group at: http://www.demarche.org/greenwashingweek See also David Cronin's article on the Green Week: "Corporate Greenwash at EU Environment Meet?", http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51702