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The arts must not be used to cleanse the reputations of dirty businesses
Kevin Smith writing in the September 2013 issue of CIWEM’s ‘The Environment’ magazine says oil companies are sponsoring our most respected cultural institutions as part of a cynical PR campaign. You can download the pdf here or browse the article online below.
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Art & Activism, Water & Oil, Then & Now.
Jane Trowell reflects on 30 years of Platform’s history in the September 2013 issue of CIWEM’s ‘The Environment’ magazine. Download the article as a pdf here, or browse online below.
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Pirates! Oil companies are stoking hysteria to line their pockets
This article first appeared in New Internationalist This week the Combating Piracy Conference has been taking place in London, behind closed doors. This industry-organized event brings together representatives from European Union, NATO and oil and shipping companies. At a time when austerity is cutting into the public purse, and the armed forces, oil and shipping…
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A New Frontier: the rush for oil and gas in East Africa
This article was written by Taimour Lay who investigated the activities of oil companies in East Africa for Platform. It first appeared on the African Arguments website. When you stand on the island of Rukwanzi at the heart of Lake Albert, your first thought, echoing perhaps the casual rhetoric of the region’s oil men, is…
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Risking ruin: Shell’s investments in Tar Sands, the Arctic and Nigeria
This article first appeared as an introduction to a report, Risking Ruin: Shell’s dangerous developments in the Tar Sands, Arctic and Nigeria, published on 18 May 2012 by Indigenous Environmental Network and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. As economic austerity bites, major oil companies are making staggering profits. A high oil price in 2011 made Shell $30.92 billion in annual…
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Shell admits funding Niger Delta “warlords”
This guest blog for Greenpeace UK was written by Ben Amunwa and first published on 2 May 2012. A recent video published online shows a Shell executive admitting that the oil giant could easily be funding what he describes as “warlords” and militants in Nigeria. You can watch the video here, (see 57mins – 1hr). The admission…
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Social Licence: Complicity in the Age of Extraction
This article, by Kevin Smith of Platform and Clayton Thomas Muller of the Indigenous Environmental Network first appeared in the Winter 2011/12 issue of Fuse Magazine in Canada. At first glance, there might not seem to be an obvious common ground between indigenous activists in Canada, performance artists in the UK and climate activists in…
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RBS attempt to greenwash backfires
This article first appeared in the March 2012 edition of Ethical Consumer magazine. Alongside was featured Lisa Isfits' infographic on RBS fossil fuel finance, 'What would you choose?' The Royal Bank of Scotland has been trying to claw back some level of acceptable public image after a wide range of misdemeanours. Beyond the bail-out, the…
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Equator Principles; Principles, Profits or just PR?
NGOs ask hard questions at anniversary of Bank Standards Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Jun 3 2004 | Friends of the Earth US One year after the launch of the Equator Principles (EP), a bank-led initiative to establish common environmental and social standards for project finance, NGOs have released an assessment on the implementation and effectiveness of…
