The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is straining ties between companies and activists

IT IS not just Barack Obama and Tony Hayward, BP’s boss, who are under fire because of the environmental catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. In the decade or so since BP acknowledged the need to slow climate change and signalled its commitment to investing in cleaner sources of energy with the slogan “Beyond Petroleum”, many environmental activists and NGOs have laid down their placards and helped the firm execute its green strategies. They are now facing intense criticism of that collaboration from their own supporters, who say the oil spill has left BP’s (always contentious) green claims “Beyond Parody” and the company “Beyond the Pale”.

The website of one such NGO, the Nature Conservancy, has been bombarded with complaints from donors horrified by the discovery (although it had never hidden the fact) that over the years it had received around $10m in gifts of cash and land from BP, and had even given the oil giant a seat on its “International Leadership Council”. Another, Conservation International, has accepted over $2m from BP, advised the firm on its oil extraction methods, and from 2000 to 2006 included on its board John Browne, BP’s boss at the time and the moving force behind the firm’s conversion to greenery. The Environmental Defense Fund, another big NGO, had helped BP develop its internal carbon-trading system, and more recently campaigned alongside it for a law to cap America’s emissions of greenhouse gases through the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), an alliance of NGOs and big businesses. Other prominent NGO members of USCAP include the Nature Conservancy, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute. …