Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 2:14 PM

Subject: Lafarge Sustainability Stakeholder Panel

Dear superquarry colleagues & CHE Fellows

 

I wonder if I might raise a point of discernment with you?

 

As many of you know, when Lafarge pulled out from the Harris superquarry they urged public debate about the future of the minerals industry. Some of us have recently responded to that via the articles in ECOS (see http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/articles/2004-ecos-lafarge.htm ).

 

Lafarge have now come back and invited me to join their Sustainability Stakeholder Panel. I have provisionally agreed to this, but before finally confirming I would just like to check that there is no strong feeling amongst those of us who fought the superquarry over so many years that this would be inappropriate. In the case of those of you who are CHE Fellows, I want to ensure that folks generally would be happy with CHE (via me) being so associated.

 

The main argument against going for this is that it could be seen as co-option.

 

The main argument in favour is that we all use corporate products, so if we're serious about sustainability we need to work with the corporations when the conditions are right, as well as against them when they're wrong.

 

I would not be accepting any payment from Lafarge for doing this, though I would need them to pay my travel for an annual meeting in Paris - this year to be on the theme of sustainable building and architecture. Lafarge's invitation specifically states that "joining our stakeholder panel does not deprive you, in any fashion of your freedom to criticize and/or oppose Lafarge on specific projects or initiatives."

 

Personally I feel comfortable with this, but I'd be grateful to hear from any of you who feel strongly one way or another. I need to confirm quickly on this as this year's meeting is on 17th November. If you have views that you think I should consider, would you be good enough to send them to me within 24 hours? My sense is that if I received several strong opinions against I should decline; otherwise go with it.

 

Thank you.

 

Alastair McIntosh.

To: Michel Picard, Vice-President Environmental Issues, Lafarge, 27 Oct 2004

Outcome of discernment on Lafarge Sustainability Stakeholder Panel

 

 

Dear Michel (cc. Gaelle & Superquarry & CHE colleagues)

 

I have now taken advice over your offer to make me a member of the Lafarge Sustainability Stakeholders' Panel, and the general consensus from colleagues and associates is to "proceed, but with caution and full transparency". I have summarised all the responses below (in most cases made anonymous) - they make interesting reading, and I thank everybody who managed to find a moment to help me with this in such a tight time frame.

 

I am happy to accept this role, as a Fellow of the Centre for Human Ecology, on the following understandings:

 

a. That it in no way compromises my freedom, both explicit and implicit, to adopt a critical and even oppositional stance towards Lafarge if moved so to do (we have already agreed on this).

 

b. That you pay full expenses, but no other material personal benefit (also already agreed). I do, however, reserve the right to seek external funding to help me with this work, such as with the grant I received from the Network for Social Change to help with the meetings we had on Lewis and Harris over the past year. Any such help received will be declared to you and on my website page where I declare all major funding sources for my work - http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/aft.htm .

 

c. That the input of my time will, one trusts, be mutually beneficial, and my rationale for giving time to Lafarge is a continued honouring of the "dignified exit strategy" that we evolved with respect to the Harris superquarry, in which I pledged that if you pulled out from Harris people like me would strive to help you on the sustainability front.

 

d. That we continue the policy of full transparency so that there is nothing about my engagement with Lafarge that I cannot openly share with all my colleagues (as documented on p. 47 of my  recent ECOS article with Luc and Jean-Paul of WWF).

 

e. That we recognise that just as this could make me vulnerable to the charge (and reality) of corporate co-option in a greenwash exercise, so it makes you vulnerable to, as one of your colleagues put it in Bergamo, "setting Greenpeace loose in Lafarge"! Accordingly, we can proceed fruitfully only by maintaining the spirit of due mutual respect established over the past year, and the hope that hunankind can indeed move towards an industrial ecology in a manner that justifies such an attempt at working together.

 

 

If these terms are not acceptable to Lafarge, we should lay the matter down. Otherwise, I shall very much look forward to meeting with you for the discussion about sustainable architecture in Paris on 17th November. That day just happens to be my 49th birthday ... but remember, under the terms of clause b (above), "no other personal benefit" is permitted. You see, we Scots really do benefit from something of the Calvinist spirit!

 

Best wishes / amities,

 

Alastair McIntosh

 

 

Summary of Responses to Discernment Process

 

A leading authority on planning law: "Thank you for the information.  While I have no strong opinion re you joining the Sustainability Stakeholders Panel - I do hold concerns.  Locally in the Peak District National Park - Lafarge have recently been granted an extension to their major Quarry in the National Park (Hope Quarry and Cement Works - Castleton) the extension was small and was granted - tho' a smaller annual extraction rate than requested was required. There is need for a public debate particularly in view of the latest interest in enlarging a quarry in Shetland (Sunday Herald  10/10/04 - Shetland Times etc.) and two recent Reports.... I am sure you will be aware of caution and concerns held by many people - however I do note  the content of your penultimate paragraph relating to the fact that you retain the right to criicize...specific projects or initiatives. Do please keep me informed of progress - I retain a strong interest in minerals use/application etc."

 

The director of a major environmental NGO: "We have] a policy of extreme caution about getting involved with such things - too often we have found that groups have been approached in one part of the world and then used as greenwash for activities somewhere else. That being said, I don't see that as any reason to object to you taking on such a role - especially given your well developed sense for bulls**t and attempted cooption. I'm sure you won't let your involvement be seen as any endorsement by the other organisations involved in the campaign. I hope you find it interesting and worth the effort."

A literary editor: "Thank you for having put me in copy of this e-mail. I believe this is an important and highly sensitive point. According to Nicanor Perlas's view, and the threefolding of society (Shaping globalization: Civil society, cultural power and threefolding ), it is vitally important to remain in the civil society, instead of slipping in the economic sphere. I don't exactly know what it entails to be a member of this panel, but I trust your discernment to be careful ! It could ruin your authority position as a speaker on these subjects..."

A professor of sociology and expert on globalisation: "In my view you should accept the place and expenses to support your attendance."

 

A CHE Fellow working in environmental audit for a major accounting firm: "I would support this form of engagement. I think it is a great opportunity to move the agenda forward."

 

A CHE Fellow and lecturer:  "Co-option ... could be very subtle. I don’t need to know all this now, but in general I wonder if we’d need a bit more background (that you may already know) about what’s involved. For example, it would be helpful to know more about the role of the stakeholder panel, what kind of teeth it has in engaging in ‘critical friend’ inquiries, its relationship to shareholders, and how it defines ‘sustainability’ etc.. Also, whether there is any possibility that the relationship could grow towards a partnership whereby the broader CHE might be able to engage in different ways – potentially offering other Fellows opportunities in collaborative ways with your work.

Osbert Lancaster, the current CHE director: "Ithink this is an interesting opportunity. Regardless of whether you do this as an independent or as a Fellow (if it's possible to make such a dualist split), I think it is essential for your credibility that you not only criticise LaFarge (where appropriate), but are seen to do so. This could be by having a page on your website showing copies of your correspondence with them etc. Might evolve into a discussion list.... And this could take up a considerable amount of time. As could defending the engagement!

"If you are prepared for the time that might be required to do this properly, and LaFarge are happy for this (or at least some of it) to be in the public domain, I say go for it.

"This sort of critical engagement is perhaps not new. What would be new would be doing it in the open - this will demand an even higher level of rigour on the part of the 'critical engager'. Different people would doubtless do this is in different ways, but whatever you decide to do could be one model for CHE Fellows' engagement with such issues. (I need to think about my work with the Parliament in this regard - of course this has a different contractual, relationship.)

"There is an issue of funding such engagement that we need to come back to at some other time, though my immediate thought is that funded action research might be one route. (IE being paid to do, reflect and communicate about this stuff).

"I think it would be good to go for it as a Fellow. A challenge to the rest of us too.... I think it is about the challenge of doing things for real,
actual engaging, as opposed to opposing (which is of course also valuable). Both Lafarge and Parliament illustrate different constraints. Interestingly one of the main common issues is reputation 'management' - theirs and ours!"

 

 

 

Contribution to the Centre for Human Ecology November 2004 Newsletter, p. 1

 

As many readers of this newsletter will know, the Harris superquarry saga finally came to an end earlier this year. Lafarge, the French company that had taken over Redland, laid down its formidable appeal process.

 

My own part in this was persuasion towards a “dignified exit strategy”. It was a tough internal decision for the company But as a senior executive concluded, “We have to create value for shareholders, but we want to do it by respecting some values. The combination of both dictates our decisions. We recognise that if we are acting in the best possible way from an environmental standpoint, we will get a competitive advantage” (Sunday Herald, 4-4-04).

 

Over the course of our negotiations, both trust and respect were mutually established. An outcome is that I’ve now been invited to join the Lafarge Sustainability Stakeholder Panel. It advises on such moves as the company’s acclaimed target of cutting CO2 emissions by 10%. The current working theme is sustainable building practices.

 

Agreeing to become a “critical friend” of my “auld enemy” in this way raised challenging ethical questions – ones common to other CHE Fellows like Wayne Visser, Samantha Graham and Christoph Bey with their work on corporate ethics, and Osbert Lancaster’s role in advising the Scottish Parliament on sustainable purchasing.

 

Are we simply being co-opted and used as greenwash, neutralising our activist credentials in so doing? Or is it that we all have to own up to using corporate products in everyday life? Is it therefore our duty to attack where necessary, but to help where possible – a simultaneous “push” and “pull” dynamic?

 

The outcome of my own discernment amongst CHE Fellows and superquarry fellow-campaigners may be found on the web at www.alastairmcintosh.com/general/quarry/lafarge-panel.htm . I’ll be regularly updating this page to express total transparency. I’ll also continue to be advising several other communities (currently 5) that are struggling with quarrying issues.

 

As Mrs Thatcher famously said, “It’s a funny old world”!

 

Report on Sustainability Panel Meeting, 17 November 2004

I arrived at the Lafarge offices to be shown upstairs to the corporate dining area. Rather to my astonishment, what was described to me as "almost the entire Lafarge top brass" were present - some 20 vice presidents plus Bernard Kasriel, the CEO - as well as 4 staff from Utopies, a corporate environmental consultancy who were facilitating the day, and the 7 of us on the Stakeholder Panel. The other members of the Panel comprised 2 from the NGO world (Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud of WWF international and Simon Zadek of AccountAbility and formerly of NEF), an ethical investment analyst (who said that Lafarge is quite highly rated) and trade union representatives. 

Over lunch both Katrina Litvack, the investment analyst and myself were seated beside CEO Kasriel, and I asked questions aimed at appraising how far sustainability was central to Lafarge's corporate strategy as distinct from being part of the window dressing. 

After lunch we convened in a board room to hear three excellent presentations on sustainable architectural and business practices - see http://utopies.com/Lafarge/ . The basic drift of these was that 40% of European energy consumption is consumed in running buildings, with 7 - 20 years' worth of running costs being tied up in the energy embodied in original construction. Much of this energy consumption could be rendered unnecessary were there to be a shift towards sustainable practices by, for example, rewarding architects according to the energy efficiency and future likely market values of their creations. The ecological footprint of the average European is 6 hectares, whereas with 6 billion people living on a 12 billion hectare planet we actually only have 2 hectares each to play sustainably with (I noted that in this respect Scotland's population density precisely equates with the average of 2 hectares or 5 acres each). All of this was standard ecological thinking, albeit very well presented. My interest was to see the reaction of the Lafarge top brass. I spoke about 3 times, and the following is a summary of my input:

"Can I start by saying that I am very surprised to see you all here (laughter from the floor). I mean, to see that you are taking the question of stakeholders and sustainability so seriously within Lafarge that some 20 vice presidents and the CEO should turn out for a session like this (more laughter). 

I am surprised because, from discussions I have had with a number of your executives, I am not certain how fully you have made sustainability central to your strategic planning process. It may be that you have done this, but if so, [as Simon Zadek points out], we have not been shown the strategic plan. 

I am here with only one interest. I am interested to know how sustainability might become central to your corporate plan. For that to happen, you must be convinced that it will be profitable. I therefore have a secondary question, which is how you are going to anchor what you are doing in with your marketing strategy - marketing both externally to the outside world, and internally to your employees and close stakeholders. Unless you do that, you will not reap profit from what you do, and so the good intentions will not be sustainable. 

The aim needs to be to put yourselves in a position where, when asked by your children what you are doing to help the plight of the Earth and its peoples, you can reply with conviction and dignity. In my view, that means that the whole nature of the business needs to start changing in directions that you have already, I think, acknowledged. You need to shift from being purely a resource extractive company, to increasingly advancing sustainable building solutions which mean we have to rely less and less in the future on new primary resource extraction. Primary natural resources took the fulness of geological time to accumulate. Humankind needs to use them in ways that allow for the hope that the human race will be a going concern through future geological time, and that means not trashing the planet. 

Working out these solutions needs your technological ability, as demonstrated, for example, in the work of your gypsum research division, and also your political muscle. In the past large corporations have often used political muscle to lower the level playing field of standards. I will judge you according to how you use that same muscle to raise them, and that is why, given the reality that we live in a capitalist world at present, I am concerned that your actions should optimalise profitability so as to be sustainable and trend-setting. 

Some companies are financially driven (the British model), others techno-production driven (the French model, if I might simplify), and others marketing driven (the American model). From what little I have studied of Lafarge and sustainability, it seems to me, rather ironically, that there is something to be learned from the American model. To succeed in being an industry leader with the new zeitgeist of sustainability, you must anchor your strategy very firmly in to your marketing plan including, as we have heard today from Jean-Paul, developing a range of sustainability branded products. And that "marketing" needs to be broad-ranging. It entails, all the time, thinking what the true "market" is that you are addressing. To take just one example, I hear you talking about the potential to construct low-energy buildings and I see, also, that you make a virtue of giving charitable donations to social groups that deal with poverty reduction. The "marketing" that I am talking about integrates these two things. It recognises that one of the greatest causes of poverty in cold countries like Scotland is fuel poverty. By developing sustainable building solutions, Lafarge could justifiably start to think of itself, and represent itself as, tackling one of the root causes of Western-world poverty. Is that not something that you could be very proud of? Is that not something that would humanise your necessary core strategic mission of adding value for shareholders?

It is with these possibilities in mind that I am willing to contribute, tentatively, to this panel.

It was my impression that these points were carefully listened to. Indeed, I was approached afterwards by executives who said that they were pleasantly surprised that I should be concerned about their profitability, and who noted that the most senior executives appeared to have been listening unusually deeply throughout the afternoon's proceedings.

My bottom-line conclusion was that attending the event was a worthwhile expenditure of energy. We'll see what happens from here on.

Abstract of Forthcoming Lecture

To the MBA Alumni's Sustainability Executive Roundtable conference on business & NGO relationships at INSEAD, France, 18 March 2005:

Alastair McIntosh was one of the community leaders who fought the proposed
Isle of Harris superquarry - a concept that was initiated by Redland
Aggregates Ltd and inherited by Lafarge following acquisition. Uniquely, he
led spiritual testimony at the government public inquiry, introducing a
professor of Calvinist theology and a Native American war chief as his key
witnesses. The story as he saw it is documented in his book, "Soil and Soul"
(Aurum Press, 2001), translated as "Chronique d'une alliance: peuples
autochtones et societe civile face a la mondialisation" (Editions Yves
Michel, Fevrier 2004). McIntosh objected to the proposed quarry's location
in a National Scenic Area of high indigenous cultural value. However, he
accepts that we all use stone, and for this reason has agreed to serve
voluntarily as a member of Lafarge's Sustainability Stakeholders' Panel.
Holding an MBA from Edinburgh University (1981), he urges corporations to
try and see profit as lubrication, the more fundamental objective being
social service through relationships of mutuality in a tranformed econony
based on fair trade, environmental right-relationship and the strengthening
of communities to build social cohesion. He argues that many of these
principles are already present in Lafarge and urges the company to go
further, by reviewing corporate strategy, seeking to minimise primary
aggregate extraction, and diversifying into sustainable building solutions -
all this in ways that aim to optimalise both employee motivation and
marketing advantage so as to maintain profitable "lubrication". This, he
argues, is the only ethic that can maintain Lafarge as a community of people
working together with a vision and story to be proud of, as distinct from a
soul-less destructive machine to be ashamed of. After years of doing battle
he describes his relationship with Lafarge now as being one of "mutually
critical friendship".

 

 

My Contribution to the Lafarge Sustainability Report 2004 

 

Each member of the Lafarge Sustainability Stakeholder Panel gets to write a short report that is published in the annual Sustainability Report. Obviously, this is aimed at corporate image, but I, and others on the panel, were keen to see how far Lafarge would go in publishing what we really thought. I have to give them credit on in this respect - they  have accurately compiled what we individually and collectively thought, and published the report (as of around May 2005) giving our opinions as well as documenting their achievements. Below is my opinion (space limited to 800 characters), some supplementary points that I made that were used, and at the bottom, part of our collective statement in which I played a significant role in drafting. I find it impressive that they have published this given that many of our points go to the heart of corporate strategy. 

 

Of course, words come cheap, but I have to say, I feel that there is a good spirit in the senior executives at my old enemy, Lafarge. For a corporation, I consider they try hard to tackle criticisms of their business. This is why I suggested we used the term "critical friends" in the report. I also have to say that with our superquarry situation on Harris, they did right by us, and I am well aware that others elsewhere who might have seen a less favourable face of Lafarge might feel less warmly disposed to the company than I now am with good reason. 

 

In the course of this past year on their panel I have only been approached only once by activists who feel that they have a grievance with Lafarge. I have told them that I can't take on their cause like with Harris, but if they send me a summary of the facts I'll take them up with the Panel if these facts fail to accord with the company's sustainability policies. So far, nothing has been sent to me. 

 

 

My Statement - 2004 Sustainability Report

    We all use quarry products. That is why, as an ecologist, I am a Lafarge stakeholder. My acid test questions are:

 

-         Is Lafarge learning to do more with less damage to the planet? Yes … and I am impressed by its targets for emissions and site restoration.

 

-          Is it creating wealth by developing ingenious new sustainable building solutions? Frankly … not enough yet, but this path is being explored.

                       

 

Additional Points I Made About the Report....

 

.... to the question: Does the information provided by Lafarge in the rest of the report answer your disclosure expectations?

 

I was delighted to see the high level of charitable giving, and the frank reporting of political contributions. However, I have serious doubts about the ethics of political giving – especially when 2/3 of it goes to the Republican Party? Is this good policy?

 

I am pleased to see the progress being made on procurement, and would urge that this is developed in accordance with sustainability as well as the other policies.

 

I am concerned, as a pacifist, to see that Lafarge employs armed guards in some of its facilities.

 

In general, I am impressed by the level and depth of reporting, especially in areas where competitors do not do the same.

 

Material from the Stakeholder Panel's View on the Report to which I made major contribution

The panel's mission is to serve as "critical friends who challenge Lafarge's approach to corporate responsibility, suggest improvements and form each year a critical opinion on Lafarge's accountability in this field.....

....The report is still too focused on efforts made and not enough on results achieved and the dilemmas encountered. Some of our recommendations remain unaddressed, especially those dealing with Lafarge's long-term corporate strategy.... 

....In the long run, to tackle challenges such as CO2 emissions in the developing world or dependence on primary raw materials, we consider that Lafarge should shift from the making of incremental improvements to a global rethinking of its core business. We believe Lafarge should move from seeing its business as the production of primary building materials towards vertical integration that seeks to provide sustainable building solutions with accompanying new product lines. This would allow Lafate to minimise what they take and maximize what they make....

..... For next year, we would like to see our work with Lafarge more focused on strategic issues with a stronger link with the decision making process....

[The full report and other Lafarge sustainability material is available via this link]

 

CHE, and Lafarge’s Sustainability Stakeholder Panel (2005/06)

 

The following report has been prepared for inclusion in the newsletter of the Centre for Human Ecology, autumn 2006.

 

In the November 2004 CHE newsletter I described how, after 13 years of contributing to a successful battle by many players against Redland which was then taken over by Lafarge, the plans for a superquarry in a National Scenic Area on South Harris had been dropped. To crown it all, the Paris-based corporation had come back, and invited me (in an unpaid role, but with necessary expenses covered) to join their Sustainability Stakeholders’ Panel.

 

As I wrote in the newsletter at that time:

 

 ‘Agreeing to become a “critical friend” of my “auld enemy” in this way raised challenging ethical questions – ones common to other CHE Fellows … with their work on corporate ethics…. Are we simply being co-opted and used as greenwash, neutralising our activist credentials in so doing? Or is it that we all have to own up to using corporate products in everyday life? Is it therefore our duty to attack where necessary, but to help where possible – a simultaneous “push” and “pull” dynamic?’

 

Where does it all stand two years on? Basically, I still don’t have an unambiguous answer to that question because, I suspect, there is none. What I have done over this time is to use my position to continue to push the company to sail as close to the wind as it can in advancing “sustainable” initiatives. Lafarge is the world’s largest cement producer and it operates in 75 countries. Its CO2 emissions are double that of Switzerland, and so when, as they have done, they take more costly steps than most of their competition to cut emissions, it does make some difference. And yet, as with all these debates, the gap is vast between true sustainability and how we in the West are living (and thus, driving via the corporations whose products we all use). It is difficult to argue that my involvement with the likes of Lafarge achieves much more than tinkering at the margins. On the other hand, should we do nothing, just because we can never do enough?

 

What I do see in Lafarge, and I have now spent quality time with many of the senior management all the way up to Bruno Lafont, the new Chief Executive, is that these are people who are determined to run their business but who, equally, welcome pressure on the industry as a whole to do so at the highest social and environmental standards that competitive pressure will allow. There, of course, is the rub. Every time any one of us buys the cheapest product, we feed the competitive system. And that’s probably the main thing that I’m observing in my involvement with Lafarge. We may hate “the system,” but whether we like do so or not, we are all part of it. To a degree that is more uncomfortable than many can face, if we look in the mirror we will see corporate reality reflected back. I sometimes think that the most valuable influence I have with Lafarge is owning up to this complicity. Without doubt, doing so makes it easier for their senior management to face up to our side of the agenda - the environmental imperative. It also helps to shed the sanctimoniousness that the “other side” often see in the green movement.

 

When he was appointed about a year ago, Olivier Luneau, the new Senior Vice President for Sustainable Development and Public Affairs, came to Glasgow to spend an evening with Vérène and I. His message was simple, and as sufficient time has now passed I think I can share it. He said that they were well aware of and share the concern that WWF, other panel members and I have expressed that they are not moving fast enough in developing product lines of sustainable building materials. However they were (at that time) in a period of transition between CEOs, so they would request our patience for little bit longer until that the new CEO had opportunity to establish his own approach.

 

That could be dismissed simply as a stalling measure, but it seemed reasonable to me. However, in writing my piece that has now been published in the 2005 Lafarge Sustainability Report, I made a point of keeping such questions firmly on the agenda. Here is what I wrote (speaking for the Panel as a whole), and this, really, summarises where my involvement with Lafarge currently stands.

 

The panel affirms Lafarge’s robust stance on quarry rehabilitation and restoring biodiversity. However, there are aspects of biodiversity and landscape that carry both human and intrinsic meaning, and which can never be fully restored. As such, we see large-scale quarrying as a fundamental problem, albeit one for which we are all responsible as consumers. We therefore welcome Lafarge’s growing integration of its quarrying policies with recognition above in this report that, “The key challenge is to minimize the use of raw materials.” And we pose the strategic question: “What corporate policies would be necessary if nearly all new quarrying was to be ceased, and building materials were to be created almost entirely from recycled sources of material?” Just as Toyota have set the goal of developing “the non-polluting, accident-proof saloon” by 2050, with 5% of resources invested in necessary R & D, so the panel looks to Lafarge leading the equivalent for the construction industry.

 

ALASTAIR MCINTOSH

Fellow of the Centre for Human Ecology,

Scotland

 

 

 

Update 2006-07 (written 22 May 2007)

Report on the past year's participation on Lafarge's Sustainability Stakeholders' Panel

 

Over the past year I missed the two major meetings of the panel. The one in Lyon clashed with a prior engagement and the one scheduled for December 2006 happened at a time that my wife was having pregnancy complications that ended, very sadly, with the stillbirth of our child. In April 2007 I was able to attend the meeting held at Dunbar here in Scotland. It turns out that Friends of the Earth Scotland have wound up their campaign at Dunbar, and I met with the chair of the Community Council who spoke well of Lafarge's community relationships at that site. I have to say that this impressed me, since community councils while fairly powerless in Scotland do usually reflect grassroots feeling. He was all in favour of Lafarge, and as I looked round the site I could not (at a visual level) see a lot that could be complained about - which is not bad for Scotland's main (in fact, I think they said, only) producer of cement.

My minimal involvement on the Panel this past year did not preclude some active engagement, especially via Michel Picard by way of speaking with him again on a joint platform with Claude Martin, previously Director-General of WWF International, at INSEAD near Paris. There were a lot of bankers at this event, and I upset some of them by going on the attack because I just found their language of ethical investment so very boring. I challenged them from the floor (during a break-out group) on this, suggesting that they could maybe consider being a little more creative and life-giving in how they were looking at ethical investment - and I could see that some of them were rather offended. At the same time, one of the INSEAD students stood up and said, "I wish that more of my colleagues were here to hear this being said!"

Michel and I have now drafted our papers for publication by INSEAD, and the interesting part is where we draw our contributions together with a challenging debate to one another about what happened on Harris with the superquarry, and the dynamics of stakeholder involvement. Once this is published I will flag it up on this site. It is rare to see a corporate insider and an activist each say how they experienced the same campaign. It was also ironic to find Michel and I each advising the other on one another's pieces ... it felt as if we were both concerned to see the truth of the matter told, and I think that when our pieces are published they will shed some interesting insights.

Immediately after the Dunbar meeting, I was invited by our head of Department at Strathclyde University, Prof David Miller, to debate with visiting scholar Joel Kovell of the American Green Party on the theme: "Engage with or end capitalism? Which way to Sustainability?" I was challenged as to why I agree to sit on Lafarge's Sustainability Stakeholder Panel. I said that Lafarge had done right by us on Harris, and that we all use the company's products. I can see the imperfection of engaging with capitalism in this way, but I do not see any better options on offer.

I have been invited to speak at the  Salon du Livre Insulaire - Les Trésors des îles écossaises (Treasures of Scottish Islands Book Festival) on the Isle of Ushant-Quessant, Brittany, 21-26 August.  This presented an interesting dilemma. Lafarge have a proposal to extract marine sand in Brittany, and the festival organisers told me that some activists opposing this will probably come to talk to me about what happened on Harris. I told Lafarge that this was happening since, if I had kept it quiet, they may have wondered if I was cooking something up! They offered to brief me on the proposal, but I declined, saying that I didn't want any contact that could be construed as lobbying. At the same time, I took the opportunity in the bus back from Dunbar to ask Olivier Luneau about it, and I will, nearer the time, check the web for more information. It is not my wish to get involved in a campaign in Brittany provided that anything Lafarge does accords with its stated environmental policies. When I visit Brittany I will tell them the Harris story just as I would with any other place where I speak.

Because I missed two meetings, I have claimed very little by way of travel/subsistence from Lafarge over the past year - only some €200 for cancelled bookings and the Dunbar travel. INSEAD paid my travel to their event and a lecturing fee of €500, but that was not from Lafarge. A dilemma that came up this year is that this involvement with Lafarge takes up about 6 days of my time a year, and I am entirely self employed as a writer, lecturer and activist. It had been suggested to me that as part of claiming expenses but no fees from Lafarge, it would seem reasonable to claim my office running costs. The average cost of running my "office" is about £40 per working day. I asked Lafarge, and they said that, yes, they would pay this for six days a year if I so wished. However, on thinking it over further, I have decided against invoicing them for this. It would be too open to misunderstanding or to being turned against me. I have therefore decided that it is probably better to be left in the ironic position that, in effect, I, the activist, help to fund a multinational corporation!

I do ask myself what point there is in being on this panel. Sometimes, like with so much environmental endeavour, it seems like a tiny amount of benefit against a massive problem. But then I consider that cement making produces between 5 and 10% of world CO2 emissions, and that Lafarge is the biggest player in the game. I know that their efforts to reduce emissions and to restore sites etc. are costly, so it is important that they have "critical friends" to help justify this effort. The effort is not, of course, enough ... but then, is anything any of us are doing "enough"? I think that for me what being on the Panel does is it keeps me in touch with the realities of a business world that I might otherwise lose touch with, and so forget where a great many people are coming from in how they look at corporate social responsibility and sustainability issues. That is valuable. I also feel that my involvement continues to be "right" in terms of how Lafarge withdrew from Harris - it is, in a sense, an appreciation from the mountain. After all, we environmentalists put out the message that if those around us become more "green" then they'll benefit from it, so this is just a small example of putting my money where my mouth is. All of this feeds in beneficially to my wider work - my teaching and campaigning insights - and that is how I justify the time to myself.

That said, I feel that I have nothing new to say to Lafarge, but that there is a role to be played in continuing to reinforce the same message. For the time being I intend to continue doing that. This past year's sustainability report is published on Lafarge's website and my personal statement is on p. 41. Here is what I said:

I continue to be impressed by Lafarge’s general ethos of openness and willingness to subject its operations to the scrutiny of this Panel. My main suggestion is that the company’s senior management takes a stronger lead in developing sustainable building solutions. These are vital so that more can be made from less – greater utility drawn out of fewer virgin natural resources. I understand that the industry may not yet be ready for significant ecological innovation and that there are market and technical uncertainties about which strategies to adopt, but that is where Lafarge’s creative leadership must prove itself. I call on senior management to prioritise transparent political lobbying to help raise the level of the industry’s playing field and so to tread more lightly upon this Earth.

Lastly, I was prompted to update this page today on receiving an email from Olivier Luneau. It announced that Lafarge has been included in the new FTSE4Good Environmental Leaders Europe 40 index, which comprises European stocks included in the FTSE4Good Series that received the top environmental score of 5. He says that Lafarge are the only company in their industry in this new index, and credits the Stakehoders' Panel with having contributed to this achievement. Again, the sceptic in me asks how much such indexes are forms of "greenwash", and I know that partly they must be so. At the same time, if people don't try to do something on the grounds that they could never do enough then humankind would be in a sorry state, and so I was delighted to read of Lafarge's achievement, and I wrote back to Olivier and to Michel Picard as follows:

That is amazing news! Very well done. The challenge now will be to use that position to lobby for higher industry standards so that Lafarge can continue on this path without being undercut by competition from those who try less hard.

 

 

Last Updated: 26 February 2008

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