Analyze

Our project has been conducted in so-called ‘Kelowna’ , located in ‘British Columbia’ , ‘Canada’. This land on which we live and work is the unceded, ancestral territory of the syilx Okanagan nation. Prior to European colonisation in the 19th century, the syilx people stewarded the land for thousands of years, guided by an ethos that sees the nonhuman world as an inheritance to be protected rather than owned and exploited. In spite of the violence of settler colonialism, syilx culture endures. A compelling example of the mobilisation of syilx knowledge systems and philosophies against environmental injustice is the restoration of kokanee and coho salmon to the Okanagan. Since the 1990s, the Okanagan Nation Alliance has led efforts to restore habitats, build fish passages over dams, and release fry. The salmon populations have rebounded from near extinction through a process guided by syilx environmental principles. While designing a class in place-based environmental humanities methods we have collaborated with syilx colleagues to integrate their philosophies and approaches to land-based learning. 

Image source 'Mission Creek in Kelowna', Daisy Pullman

Pullman, Daisy, Astrida Niemanis, Natalie Forssman and Haida Gaede. 2023.  "Place-based Learning on syilx Land." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

Truly bringing different “stakeholders” to the table - because the Rio event was very much taken over by the corporate green consultants

It seemed to be all about communications strategies - not necessarily ads but knowing how to handle media when something happens, oh and having those meetings where they set all the ground rules - so they agree to meet with activists but only on the corporation’s terms. Leveraging the UN stage - so signing charters and prominently displaying their messaging at the stage of a conference.

t seems like the consultants truly see the corporations as the victims here - the CEOs or the people in the companies who can get jail time for not putting appropriate audit systems in place or get trapped in complex legal monitoring requirements - they don’t seem to have a bit of sympathy for the victims or for the activists, who they see as “attacking” them.

There’s a little bit where the CEO of Union Carbide claims to be doing the “moral” not just strictly legal amount of help in the aftermath of Bhopal, given the Indian government’s ownership stake in the plant. 

Mostly responsibility is seen as a performance by the Green Consultants - because no matter how “good” you are you still get attacked by activists and the laws are too hard to follow and are designed to trip you up. So responsibility also becomes a pre-emptive offensive strategy - And Green Consultants try to get people within the corporation to see the political, financial investment, PR, etc. benefits that come with this performance of green. It’s necessary to perform “Transparency” [though it wasn’t called that yet, perhaps]- the house analogy. Like the case of ARCO - the somewhat green-er gas is celebrated and rakes in profits and maintains a car-based status-quo; and the explosions are not mentioned.

Taking over the definition of “sustainable development” and making this concept rational, ensuring that economic growth is no longer in opposition to environmental protection - “leading” by being a driver at a UN conference - work done by the “beyond blame” rhetorical trick of [weaponizing inclusion] - self-imposed audits, monitoring, and management tools which are then loudly communicated about, in addition to the participation in institutions that give outside credibility

After it’s clear an “it can’t happen here” approach won’t work, Green Consulting and Enviro-comms and harmonization of oppositions come into play- corporations listening to the different “customer-publics” and finding a way to meet what’s being asked for but on the corporation’s terms. Coming to the table to negotiate but never take demands. Pushing on their own definitions of these terms, especially sustainable development, and co-opting the movement so that environmentalism becomes corporate.