Burson-Marsteller

rBGH/BST
In the 1980s recombinant bovine growth hormone or bovine somatatrophin (rBGH/BST) was Monsanto’s flagship biotechnology product. A genetically engineered substitute for the cows’ growth hormone, rBGH was developed to increase the milk yield of dairy cows, a market that Monsanto’s CEO R.J. Mahoney estimated in 1985 to be worth $1bn a year. It was also one of the first biotech products to be readied for the market and as such the whole biotech industry had an interest. The only problems were gaining approval for its commercial use and some unfavorable scientific opinions of the artificial hormone. Monsanto’s own tests showed an increased risk of mastitis in rBGH treated cattle, that the milk went off quicker and that it contained higher levels of pus. FDA scientist, Dr Richard Burroughs concluded from analyzing test data that Monsanto was manipulating the figures. In 1989 he was sacked after complaining to Congress that his superiors were suppressing his accusations. To deal with the expected controversy Monsanto assembled an army of PR companies to aid them of which B-M was one. Pro-rBGH information was rapidly distributed to the dairy industry, the press and the general public. In this way a ‘grass-roots’ coalition was formed and extensive lobbying of legislators began. B-M employees were twice exposed working covertly during the rBGH campaign.

Michael Hansen of the Consumers Union was the author of a report on rBGH. Before the report was published, he was contacted by a B-M employee claiming to be a scheduler for ABC Television’s show, “Nightline”. She asked for a preview of the report and Hansen’s CV, under the pretext of researching rBGH for a “Nightline” program on the issue. Hansen was suspicious however and inquiries at ABC revealed that no one from Nightline had called Hansen. The fax number she gave turned out to belong to B-M.

B-M also tried to infiltrate the campaign against rBGH, run by academic, author and environmental campaigner Jeremy Rifkin. A B-M employee claiming to represent a non-existent group called Maryland Citizen Consumers Council, attended anti-rBGH meetings, but her manner aroused suspicions amongst the activists who quickly exposed her. Burson-Marsteller disavowed all knowledge of her activities, suggesting that she was attending in her free time.

Europabio
Burson-Marsteller also devised the PR strategy for Europabio, the European industry association for biotech companies. They famously advised the industry to stay off the “communications killing fields” that are the “public issues of environmental and human health risk”, i.e. to avoid participating in any public debate on these issues. The strategy recommended leaving it to regulatory bodies and other third parties to deal with these issues, and to communicate through symbols and stories, not logic. A positive image of biotechnology may be created through highlighting new products and potential beneficiaries, and developing a very close relationship with the media; “Europabio must turn itself into the journalist's best and most reliable continuing source of biotechnology/bioindustries inspiration and information - the first-stop help desk where they get no industry propaganda but practical, editor-pleasing, deadline-beating, connect to interesting stories and personalities - even adversarial - relevant to their readerships.”

Climate change
In July 2001 B-M issued a denial that it had set up the Global Climate Coalition, a controversial lobbying group for the fossil fuels industry that works toward voluntary codes of conduct and market based solutions to climate change and against mandatory emissions limits. The allegation, which has been quoted in many other sources, originated with PR Watch who, after much fact checking, had to admit that they had made a mistake. Although it remains a mystery why B-M, an industry leader in ‘perceptions management’, should have taken so long to refute the claim. Despite this B-M has worked hard to oppose emissions capping legislation. They helped to set up the Business Council on Sustainable Development which successfully prevented the 1992 Rio Earth from dealing with climate change, and have orchestrated many other anti-emissions control campaigns.

Foundation for Clean Air Progress
Burson-Marsteller is behind a deceptively-named group called the "Foundation for Clean Air Progress" (FCAP), which was founded in 1995. Describing itself as “Your source for public information and education about improving air quality in America”, you might think that the FCAP supports measures to control air pollution. In fact, it was formed specifically to pressure the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to adopt tougher air pollution controls. The Washington Post reported on June 17, 1997 that FCAP participates in a "multimillion-dollar campaign to turn back EPA regulations for smog and soot. ... The nerve center behind the attack is a coalition of more than 500 businesses and trade groups that calls itself the Air Quality Standards Coalition. Created specifically to battle the clean air proposals, the coalition operates out of the offices of the National Association of Manufacturers, a Washington-based trade group. Its leadership includes top managers of petroleum, automotive and utility companies as well as long-time Washington insiders such as C. Boyden Gray, a counsel to former president George Bush. The same industries would likely bear the brunt of the costs for the new regulations, which the EPA estimates at more than $ 6 billion a year.”

BTU Tax
In 1993 Burson-Marsteller led a $1.8 million campaign to defeat a proposed tax on fossil fuels. President Clinton’s BTU Tax was the most ambitious measure to combat climate change yet proposed by an American government. The BTU Tax was to be levied on fossil fuels, specifically on the heat generating capacity of fossil fuels – a BTU (British Thermal unit) is a measure of how much heat will be released by a given mass of fuel. The tax would have added 25 cents to the price of a gallon of petrol. The tax was at the center of Clinton’s plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which he aimed to reduce to 1990 levels by 2000. The National Association of Manufacturers (a sponsor of the Global Climate Coalition), the American Petroleum Institute, over 1,600 companies, large and small, and farmers organized themselves to create the American Energy Alliance (AEA), specifically to derail the BTU tax.

The AEA hired B-M to orchestrate the campaign. Deploying around 45 staff in 23 states, B-M organised a ‘grass roots’ letter writing and phone-in campaign. They placed anti-BTU articles and editorials in the press, commissioned sceptical economists to write reports and obtained media access for businessmen to express their views. Naturally they also lobbied against the Tax in Washington D.C. Congressional support for the BTU tax quickly withered away and Clinton’s plan was defeated. Congress voted for the tax to be kept below the five cents level. Treasury Secretary Lloyd-Bentsen described the campaign as “one of the most sophisticated jobs I've seen by lobbyists in a long time.”

Rio Earth Summit
In the early '90s, Burson-Marsteller was instrumental in setting up, and subsequently flacked for, the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD), whose members include Chevron, Volkswagen, Ciba-Geigy, Mitsubishi, Dow Chemicals, Du Pont and Shell. B-M’s mission was to greenwash the image of big business in the run-up to the Earth Summit and to ensure that no binding regulations were passed to control the activities of TNCs.

The BCSD was headed by Stephen Schmidheiny, a Swiss billionaire industrialist; and also a close friend of the Secretary-General of the UN Council on Environment and Development (UNCED). Substantial representations were made by the BCSD at UNCED, the 1992 Rio ‘Earth Summit’; with the result that proposals drawn up by the UN's own Centre for Transnational Corporations - concerning the environmental impact of these large companies, and issues of corporate responsibility and accountability - were not discussed or even circulated to delegates. The best hope for imposing accountability on the activities of TNCs was lost. Furthermore, climate change was left off the agenda due to lobbying.

In 1994 the BCSD merged with the World Industry Council for the Environment, (Europe Inc., p151; WICE was another industry front group created by the International Chamber of Commerce to promote the industry agenda at Rio) and became the World Business Council on Sustainable Development which continues to oppose enforceable environmental legislation and pushes for voluntary corporate action on environmental issues. The WBCSD is now gearing up for ‘Rio + 10’ the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.

Organizing anti-environmental action
The "Wise Use movement" is a loose network of groups within the USA that are held together by a common loathing of environmental pressure groups and environmental legislation and an agenda stressing the rights of private property owners to make their own decisions as to how best to exploit natural resources. The movement is a broad church uniting workers in the extractive industries, libertarian free marketers, and the extreme right. Many commentators believe that B-M was instrumental in setting up the Wise Use movement. Many of B-M’s more unsavory clients have sponsored Wise Use groups, and in the 1980s when the movement began 36 of the companies known to be sponsoring Wise Use groups were clients of B-M. Direct proof of B-M’s involvement has so far remained elusive.

British Columbia Forest Alliance
An anti-environmental group that B-M certainly did create is the British Columbia Forest Alliance. In late 1990 B-M was hired to re-engineer the public image of Canada’s forest industries. The cornerstone of its campaign was a new front group, the British Columbia Forest Alliance. The BC Forest Alliance was launched in April 1991 under the leadership of Jack Munro, formerly the Chairperson of the International Wood Workers of America Union. Gary Ley, of B-M, was appointed executive director. In its first year it received $1m from corporate sponsors.

The Vancouver Sun, the biggest newspaper in British Columbia, with a daily circulation of 260,000, soon fell under the influence of the Alliance. Forest company officials and Alliance members were soon visiting its offices. Before the launch of the BC Forest Alliance, the Sun had five full-time reporters covering forestry, native affairs, and other environmental issues. Soon only one environment journalist remained. The rest were assigned to a category called "resources" in the business section. Reporters who wrote critically about the forest industry, and those who probed the workings of the Forest Alliance and Burson-Marsteller itself, say they were subjected to pressure. The Sun's forestry reporter, Ben Parfitt, was pulled from environmental issues after writing about Burson-Marsteller and the Forest Alliance, and reporter Mark Hume was grilled by a logging company official and an industry consultant, in the editor’s office, about columns he had written about a pro-logging coalition, while the editor, Hume says, stood by in silence. The BC Forest Alliance now claims a membership of 10,000 individuals and 300 companies and industry groups.

Forest Protection Society (Australia)
Throughout the 1980s the Australian timber industry was targeted by ecological campaigns and direct action. In response the industry spawned a new front group, the Forest protection Society, with start-up money from the Forest Industry Campaign Association.

Employing Wise Use-style rhetoric, the FPS got itself listed as an environmental protection organization in the Directory of Australian Associations. It promotes a “balanced use” of Australia’s forests and claims that the best way to protect forests is to extract the wood and sell it. From the start the FPS aimed to build a large ‘grass-roots’ membership to suggest an independent standpoint. The FPS involves itself in as many forest campaigns as it can, fighting for the rights of local communities to exploit the forests, and of course the for the timber industry. By April 1998 the FPS had 56 local branches across Australia.

Amongst other tactics the FPS has used include taking over local environmentalist meetings, with the result that they became distracted from their ongoing campaign. Like many groups associated with the American Wise Use movement, the FPS is a client of Burson-Marsteller.

Big Tobacco
The National Smokers Alliance is a front group, formed by B-M, which mobilized the support of smokers around the US to oppose new anti-smoking legislation. Members are recruited through direct marketing, free phone hotlines, and on-the-street canvassing. By 1995 the NSA claimed a membership of 3 million. The NSA encourages its members to oppose smoking bans and other restrictions on smoking.

Fighting for Environmental Pollution
In India in 1984, B-M handled crisis management for US company Union Carbide when its pesticide plant in Bhopal leaked more than 40 tons of toxic gas. 2000 people were killed instantly and after three days 5000 had died; at least 20,000 have died since, as a result of the disaster, and hundreds of thousands are suffering lung, eye and gastric complaints. Tuberculosis incidence in Bhopal is 3 times the Indian average. Following B-M’s PR and lobbying work, in 1989, as part of a court settlement, Union Carbide paid $470 Million on the condition that it could not be held liable in any future criminal or civil proceedings, and the Indian Supreme Court dropped all charges of manslaughter against Union Carbide, although safety mechanisms at the plant were appallingly inadequate. The company has now left India, leaving most of the responsibility with the Indian government.

Exxon Valdez oil spill
In the wake of the Unabomber’s allegations that Burson-Marsteller was hired to manage Exxon’s PR crisis over the Exxon Valdez oil spill, B-M has officially denied conducting crisis management over the issue. It does, however, admit to conducting a study of the case for Exxon after the event.

Californians for Realistic Vehicle Standards
Burson-Marsteller is also behind a front group called "Californians for Realistic Vehicle Standards," formed to oppose restrictions on automobile emissions of nitrogen oxide and other polluting gases.

Three Mile Island
Whilst Hill & Knowlton flacked for Metropolitan Edison, the plant’s operators, B-M conducted crisis PR for Babcock & Wilcox, the company that built the reactor at Three Mile Island.

Keep America Beautiful
B-M works for the best-known anti-littering campaign in the USA, Keep America Beautiful (KAB). KAB attempts to educate and motivate the American public to reduce littering and is funded by many corporate interests. While superficially it appears to promote a worthy cause, the corporate interest is in its implicit message that littering, amongst other environmental issues, is the responsibility of the individual citizen. In the 1970s and 1980s, environmental and consumer groups accused it of opposing various state and national efforts to establish mandatory bottle and can recycling. The proposed legislation would have helped the litter problem, but offended the interests of some of KAB's corporate sponsors including Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch and the Reynolds Metal Company. Its long term ignoring the of the issue of cigarette butt littering, is best explained by its funding from the four largest U.S. tobacco companies, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard.

Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment
In Europe, BM set up the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment, in 'defense of the beverage carton against environmental and regulatory pressures'. Its purpose is to make disposable cartons look environmentally friendly, and is sponsored by packaging interests such as Tetra Pak, Elopak, Bowater (now called REXAM) and Weyerhauser.

BP’s Torrey Canyon oil spill
B-M handled crisis management for, long-standing client, BP in the wake of the 1967 Torrey Canyon oil spill that devastated wildlife along the Cornish coastline.

Czech Mining
B-M conducted a PR campaign in the Czech Republic on behalf of TVX Gold, a Canadian mining corporation. TVX needed help in renewing its exploration license for a gold deposit near the town of Kaperske Hory and countering local opposition. The project posed a substantial threat to the unique environment of the Sumava Mountains and became a major controversy in the Czech Republic. In January 1997, TVX halted pre-mining exploration in Kasperske Hory when authorities would not renew its drilling license.

B-M’s campaign began as a relatively modest attempt to allay fears about the environmental impact of the project but later became a blatant attempt to replace Frantisek Stibal, the mayor of Kapserske Hory. Along the way they hired Czech celebrities to promote the project and published a free local newsletter in the area. Vojtech Kotecky, of Friends of the Earth Czech Republic, described the campaign as unscrupulous, full of dirty personal attacks, sophisticated and well-directed propaganda, combined with offers of financial support to the local community. After two years of campaigning on either side, the Czech government cancelled TVX’s concession after Stibal was re-elected in landslide victory.