Notes from PLATFORM discussion as part of workshop 2, Sunday
1. The question was raised as to how much leverage the other companies in the web have on Shell or BP Vs how much leverage Shell/BP have on them?
2. Springing from this: Should we target the central hub or the periphery of the web for most effective campaigning/actions.
3. BP/Shell are MAJOR clients for many of the companies in the web so even if they get a bit of hassle for being associated with them could they afford to give up such an important customer. (Perhaps we should do some research RE how big a customer is BP to for example Ogilvy and Mather, compared to their other clients.)
4. To get companies in the web to disengage from oil we need to offer them an alternative which is comparably big. Do we really want anything to be that big? We might solve to climate change issue but would still be left with all of the other problems of power relations and problematic relationships between an industry and communities / Industry and it's workers.
5. How would companies in the web see the question of engagement Vs Withdrawal (Boycott) (similarity to ethical Investment eg USS, engagement Vs divestment)
6. Comparisons were made between dismantling Shell/BP and closing Huntingdon life sciences. This is probably something we should look into in more detail, we've considered the similarities between ourselves and CAAT but not really similarities with the Huntingdon Life Sciences campaign. It was pointed out that the HLS campaign sprung from the Hillgrove campaign which was a smaller target, a winable target. Victory in this campaign made people sit up and take notice and gave campaigners a boost to move on to something bigger. HLS will not be the end of the story. If this campaign can be won campaigners will move on to something bigger again, eventually to dismantling the whole animal testing industry.
7. What would disengagement mean? For each of us, for each of the Companies in the web, for NGOs in constructive dialogue, for investors. The power of imagination, it takes a brave leap of imagination to visualise the dismantling of the oil industry.
8. The question was raised as to how much power companies in the web have, if they were to disengage couldn't BP just find someone else to do their PR/accounts etc? Maybe they could, but how many other options are there? There are perhaps 3 companies in the world who could do accounting for a company as large and complex as BP/Shell and it would be a MAJOR hassle for BP to move it's entire global accounting to a different firm.
9. James proposed the notion that "I can eat a whole elephant if I take small bites" This could be a way to overcome problematic issues raised by 3 and 4 (above) and is really what the Hillgrove --> HLS campaign has done (6 above). In practice small bites could mean that we don't expect companies in the web to withdraw overnight, to begin with it could simply be the case that they begin to think of oil as a sunset industry and don't allocate their best people, their top analyst, to the BP/Shell account. The point was made that we are already working to cut off the supply of brains to the oil industry (brains being what BP/Shell drill for in the UK) in targeting university recruitment: See people & Planet's 'Slick Protest' campaign and the work which many university campaign groups are currently doing to disrupt recruitment as part of the 'Stop Esso' campaign. Which approach is more effective in cutting off the companies supply of brains, are the 2 approaches complimentary?
10. Questions were raised as to where consumer pressure fits in to our model of dismantling? James pointed out that we are all PRODUCERS as well as CONSUMERS. One of the things which we produce is consent: A moral licence for oil companies to operate which is just as important as their legal drilling licences. James argued that throughout the 80s and 90s the environmental movement and others have very much concentrated on consumer campaigns but that this is a relatively new phenomenon. The trades unions movement for example is/was a producer's campaign.
11. Discussion concluded with the idea that as we withdraw consent from these oil companies we have simultaneously to begin building our own alternatives, lest some alternative TNC dominated industry should grow up to take the place of oil.(see 4 above). However, James argued that while this is important we should not be afraid of uniting behind a call of
NO or STOP. We should not allow industry or governments to say "It's all very well for you to say stop, but we won't listen to you until you can present a fully formed alternative thesis." (See James' ideas on the collapse of communism and the politics of retreat)
12. The closing point was made that whatever else we believe in, withdrawing consent and dismantling the oil industry must be about reducing consumption and using less.
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