The Politics of the Environment: Ideas, Activism, Policy, 2nd Edition

Environmental groups

6.2 The changing nature of environmental pressure: solution-led campaigning

The ‘greenfreeze’ refrigerator

In 1992 Greenpeace Germany commissioned a

prototype refrigerator with a hydrocarbon

cooling agent instead of the ozone-depleting

CFC-substitutes, HFCs and HCFCs. Large

chemical companies were highly sceptical,

declaring that the development of such

technology was many years off. Yet

Greenpeace persuaded a struggling East

German company, Foron, to start commercial

production of the refrigerator in 1993 (with

government financial aid). Sales in Germany

took off rapidly and within months major

manufacturers such as Bosch began shifting to

the new technology. By 1997, almost 100 per

cent of German and approaching 80 per cent of

production in Northern and Western Europe

was ‘greenfreeze’. In 2004 there were almost

150 million greenfreeze refrigerators in the

world. The only significant market that it has

failed to crack is North America.

See http://www.greenpeace.org/international/

campaigns/climate-change/solutions/solarchill

using science to engage in a ‘rational’ debate with industry, Greenpeace was
prepared to compromise its hostile attitude to its traditional ‘enemy’. During
the1990s, the solutions-led strategy saw Greenpeace working closely with
corporations in search of alternatives to environmentally damaging activi-
ties such as the use of chlorine-free paper for newspapers and fuel-efficient
cars. As the successful ‘greenfreeze’ refrigerator campaign illustrates, a key
aim was to use market pressures to change the behaviour of business (see
Box6.2). On occasion this ‘constructive engagement’ has even developed into
‘partnership’: Greenpeace UK has joined with an energy utility to invest in a
wind power project, and it encourages consumers to purchase their electric-
ity from this supplier. However, unlike many other established groups, such
as WWF, Greenpeace has resisted going down the path of direct corporate
sponsorship.
Greenpeace has not found the transition to greater respectability easy.
Ironically, the shift to solutions-led campaigning upset both the old-guard
activists and marketing staff. Hardline activists, several of whom left or
were forced out of the organisation, accused the leadership of selling out
byengaging in dialogue with corporations. Meanwhile, the marketing pro-
fessionals were alarmed that the low profile of the solutions-led approach
wasnot producing the racy headlines and evocative pictures necessary for
fundraising. Since the mid-1990s, these internal pressures have encouraged
Greenpeace to show a renewed enthusiasm for direct action, including the
occupation of the Brent Spar oil-rig (see Box6.3), an attempt to disrupt
Frenchnuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean (Bennie 1998 ), the destruction of
GM crop experiments across Europe and temporarily stopping production
of Land Rover sports utility vehicles (Financial Times,17May2005). Direct
action did not replace the policy of working with industry; rather, the two
approaches are used in parallel. Gray et al. ( 1999 )showhowGreenpeace,in
its various North Sea fishing industry campaigns, has used a broad range of
unconventional and conventional strategies, ranging from confrontation to