Dublin Shell to Sea

From being one of the most despised companies in the world just a few years ago, Shell, aided by a massive advertising budget and specialised PR companies, has managed to reshape its image into an environmentally and socially enlightened company. Shell's support for the South African apartheid regime and its well-documented involvement in human rights violations in the Niger Delta, to mention just two examples, seem to have been largely forgotten by the mainstream media. The company's 'Profits and Principles' ad series stretched the boundaries of corporate greenwash to further extremes. TV spots, newspaper ads and a glossy report all claimed that profits and principles need not be contradictory goals, but can be part of any company's 'win-win' approach. Meanwhile, Shell continues to be responsible for appalling living conditions in Nigeria's Ogoniland. [107]

Stating its concerns about climate change, the company has announced new investments in renewable energy worth US$500 million in the next years. While a seemingly large sum, in actuality it amounts to less than 1 per cent of Shell's annual expenditures. In fact, the company's annual investments in renewable energy are not much larger than the advertising budget used to improve its tarnished image. In 1998, for instance, Shell spent US$30 million on contracts with PR company Fishburn & Hedges alone. The assistance of this one company in Shell's image transformation was equivalent to 30 per cent of the oil behemoth's annual spending on renewable energy. [108]

Extracted from http://archive.corporateeurope.org/greenhouse/greenwash.html