Given what we have been saying about BP on the site recently, it is amusing to read a a different angle from Thomas Borelli, the editor of FreeEnterpriser.com and a senior fellow at The National Center for Public Policy Research, about BP’s advertising campaign.
The article is called: “Beyond Pathetic” seems a more appropriate name for BP“. Borelli starts: “What’s your “carbon footprint”? That’s the question asked by the latest version of BP’s high profile advertisements saturating both newspapers and TV. I don’t know mine, but part of BP’s current carbon footprint is about 200,000 gallons of crude oil resulting from a leak in a corroded pipeline causing the largest oil accident ever in the North Slope of Alaska”.
“But that’s only a start let’s not forget about the tragic explosion last year at the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas that claimed 15 lives and injured 170 people. With that disastrous track record measured in terms in human and environmental damage you would imagine BP would rethink its empty-headed advertising strategy before it ends up putting its own “footprint” in its mouth. Don’t bet on it though”.
“BP’s record is a classic business case study of the real world consequences of a corporate social responsibility-driven public relations campaign. BP is proving that a company can’t serve two masters at once”.
So Borelli’s thinking is you either have CSR or good-old profits above all else. Bordello goes on to attack the company for investing in “questionable renewable energy programs” as well as “gleefully advertising that the manmade global warming hoax is real”.
So we have two sides of the coin both attacking BP. We argue that BP can’t be trusted over climate change because its advertising is green washing – Bordello argues that BP can’t be trusted about climate change because climate change doesn’t exist, and the company should just get back to being a good old-fashioned oil company, like Exxon. Poor BP – under attack from both sides.
As a BP stockholder, I can tell Bordello, unequivocally, that it’s possible to have CSR and still make money! BP’s accidental spillage in Alaska paled in comparison to the Exxon Valdez disaster of the late 80s. I commend the author of this article!