Corporations target NGOs. (Environmental Intelligence).

A new international survey finds that non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International, are seen to be nearly three times more credible than government, media, and corporate sources on issues regarding the environment, health, and human rights.

In response to the growing influence of these public interest organizations, some industry groups are taking to the offensive, monitoring, tracking, and working to curtail NGO activities. WORLD WATCH magazine obtained a leaked document from the Sony electronics corporation outlining a strategy to undermine NGO campaigns by undercutting sources of nonprofit funding, monitoring watchdog group activities, and co-opting critics through strategic partnerships.

The Sony report targets several NGOs by name: Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the European Environment Bureau, and the Northern Alliance for Sustainability. These groups have been critical of the electronics industry for the large amount of pollution it creates. These NGOs supported a European Union law that passed in May requiring electronics manufacturers to take back and recycle their products when consumers finish with them, a move that would help keep computer equipment--which is crafted from more than 1,000 materials including highly toxic mercury, lead, and cadmium--out of landfills. By 2004, there will be 315 million obsolete computers in the United States alone, and most of them will be discarded, estimates the Toxics Coalition.

The Sony document, prepared for an electronics industry presentation in July 2000, calls on companies to use "prefunding intervention" to disrupt foundation and membership support of nonprofits, prepare "industry template responses" to coordinate reaction to NGO criticism, to set up a "detailed monitoring and contact network" and hire "Web investigation agencies" to track the moves of pressure groups, and to "look into partnership support with reliable NGOs" to circumvent criticism. Mark Small, a Sony vice president, told a reporter with the Inter Press Service: "We are obviously concerned about our image and we want to make sure that if Greenpeace is pushing something we want to be on top of it."

The opinion poll on nonprofits, aimed at gauging the changing relationship between corporations and NGOs one year after the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, found that 75 percent of Europeans, Australians, and Americans felt that NGO influence has "increased significantly" in the past decade. In addition, NGOs were generally viewed more favorably than corporations--except in the United States, where NGOs scored 21 percent versus business's 43 percent.

How well the findings accurately reflect public opinion is questionable. The poll, conducted by the Edelman public relations firm, surveyed a total of 1,300 "opinion leaders" from Europe, the United States, and Australia--a demographic that the PR company's president, Richard Edelman, says was made up of "people who you might say have $100,000 average income, college or professional degrees."

The survey concludes by recommending actions for businesses concerned with nonprofit groups, including calls for better corporate citizenship, improved communications with NGOs, and additional opportunities for partnerships. "We believe business has to change to win," says Edelman, and he directs companies to "monitor" NGOs, "mobilize credible third parties" to come to the aid of industry, and to "fight back" in the event of "extremism."

To see the Sony document, go to: www.worldwatch.org/mag/2001/01-4.html. To see the Edelman presentation on its survey, go to: www.edelman.com.