Environmental and Social Impact Assessment for BTC Pipeline
Corporate strategy for dealing with NGOs
first published 1 January 2002
This undated (but sometime before the end of 2002) 14-slide "presentation" updates progress on the BTC oil pipeline's Environmental & Social Impact Assessment. It was released under the US Freedom of Information Act by the US Department of Energy.
The last slide (page 14) is an analysis of the "Global NGO Framework", which depicts a typical "divide and rule" corporate public relations strategy, classifying NGOs as either "Influencers" or "Polarizers", "Small" or "Big".
The corporate strategy for dealing with the "Influencers" – Greenpeace, Oxfam, Amnesty, WWF, Open Society, Save the Children, among others – is to:
"Engage in logical manner as part of Licence to Operate at BU level (e.g. Public Consultation and Disclosure) and continue routine Reputation Process at Corporate Level.
Programme is 'Project Driven' by us
Engage on key issues:
Social – Oxfam etc
Revenue management – Soros etc
Environmental – WWF, Birdlife etc
Human rights – Amnesty
Shock tactics – Greenpeace"
For the "Polarizers" – Georgian Greens, The Corner House, Friends of the Earth, CEE bankwatch – the BTC project developers believe there is:
"No need to engage actively; this would only legitimize their case. But by all means engage oportunistically.
Recognise their targets are the IFIs
Balance their arguments with lobby campaign to politicians and IFI boards
Operate as 'cells' with small representation in each country.
Programme is 'Event Driven' by them, i.e. meetings like: J'berg, WTO, IMF etc"
Page 13, meanwhile, depicts 'Lenders' (all of which use taxpayers' money). The US institutions OPIC and MIGA are described as "Political Risk Insurers" and their activities explained as "providing cover for monies coming from commercial banks – 'sweet loans'."
This document was originally posted on a US website: www.freedominfo.org, which is a platform for linking Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) campaigns.
The document was released to The National Security Archive, an independent research institute based at George Washington University that collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through FOIA.
For more on corporate public relations on this Corner House website, see:
Engineering of Consent: Uncovering Corporate PR Strategies
Other websites monitoring corporate PR: