28th January 2003: Wrapping up

28 January 2003

During the week, the WEF continued to do what it always seems to do. It talks and talks, but the bottom line is: the bottom line counts.

Only a few months ago business was at the Johannesburg Earth Summit promising a huge commitment to sustainability. At the WEF, Tony reported from inside, that he didn't hear a single chief executive mention the Summit.

The WEF's astonishing attack on Friends of the Earth and Tony personally really shows its priority is control and spin rather than genuine dialogue. Sure, some of the WEF is broadcast on the web and journalists are allowed in to the panel sessions.

But the real business of the WEF can be found in the closed-door sessions between CEOs and governments. What did they talk about at the secret oil meeting? We'll never know.

I was impressed by the Public Eye. It really seems to have drawn attention to the WEF. I enjoyed organising and moderating our own panel and will remember Meena Raman's description of a community struggle against a Mitsubishi factory in Malaysia for a long time.

A corporate giant is laid low by campaigners

Our main job was to communicate that the WEF working against sustainability rather than for rights for communities and people. The message is getting through to people, the media, NGOs and even to some governments. To multinationals, though, the priority is lobbying against laws and rules.

The village of Davos
returns to normal

We exposed the corporates bad practice over the last year, despite the promises of WEF 2002. We exposed the lobbying against existing accountability rules. We exposed the oil industry winners from an Iraq war. We showed that business is not really interested in dialogue except on it's own terms.

On the other hand we put forward the constructive solution of accountability rules. Our friends and colleagues in Puerto Allegre (at the World Social Forum) were spending their time building a vision of sustainability and social and environmental justice.

I think I will remember most the landscape of Davos and a week of deep snow as an unusual setting for our campaigning. I'll also find it hard to get the image of those CEOs spinning in the snow in their Audis out of my head.

The WEF and us

Thanks for your supportive emails. We've made a decision about whether to participate in the WEF again or not.

The arrogant and defamatory treatment meted out to Tony is one thing. But it is the evident lack of the WEF making any progress on moving towards a fairer sustainable economy that is really depressing.

There's little we can do to change a controlling event like the WEF and so we've decided we're not going back in again. Instead we'll work for environmental justice in solidarity with our friends and colleagues of Friends of the Earth International - and with you - away from the World-Eating Fat cats.

Don't let big business rule the world,

Matt

Matt Phillips, our Senior Corporates Campaigner, is sending daily updates direct from the World Economic Forum.