One "2015 Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada" throws another under the bus

This week Tim Hortons, pressured by foreign-funded climate activists, tore up an advertising contract with energy company Enbridge.  Both companies occupy a spot near the top of the list of "2015 Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada".  That apparently doesn't cut any ice with Tim's.

This is where climate sanctimony and related idiocies like sustainability and corporate social responsibility lead.

See also, Ezra Levant to sign the petition and chip in for ads.

Rex Murphy: I’m off to Second Cup. Timmys, we hardly knew ye

CSR de-fanged?

Peter Foster: Conservatives de-fang Canada’s CSR policy

... The Harper government’s recent announcement of an “enhanced” CSR strategy for mining ... is designed to reduce irresponsible interference, not facilitate it.

...  it in fact represents a further turning away from the previous Liberal government’s attempt to accommodate and promote ENGO activism.

... The “enhanced” Conservative strategy ... much less of a potential corporate burden since radical ENGOs are not calling the shots. The Harper government has stopped funding anti-mining ENGOs such as Kairos, which had been front and centre in pushing the CSR Trojan Horse into the corporate boardroom. ...

It's good to see that something's being done to cut the legs out from under the ENGO (Extremist NGO) shakedown artists and put the hitherto bogus CSR concept to good use for once.

facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is "a self-serving hypocrite"

Peter Foster: "Two-faced book"

... [Adam] Smith noted that businessmen — like all human beings — are often self-serving hypocrites. His point was that free commercial markets turned self-interest into public benefit. We can only serve ourselves by serving others. Meanwhile Smith scoffed at those who would “trade for the public good.”

Posturing obviously comes more easily to the search engine and Internet tycoons because they can claim they are more virtuous than those who run wicked old smokestack industries. Except, that is, when they are advertising their products, which just happens to be how the new tykes make most of their money. This brings us to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s letter in this week’s IPO filing.

... In his letter, Mr. Zuckerberg, who stands to be worth up to US$28-billion, claims that Facebook was “built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.”

... Where it really gets murky is where he writes, “Over time, we expect governments will become more responsive to issues and concerns raised directly by all their people rather than through intermediaries controlled by a select few.”

... We have representative democracies for a reason. They don’t always work that well, but they are certainly preferable to the rule of any NGO-stoked Occupy cybermob.

... it’s worth noting that while rattling on about higher purpose and the voice of the people, Mr. Zuckerberg ... is keeping a firm grip on Facebook control via a dual share structure.  ... while he is paying lip service to the meddlers, he is doing his best to insulate himself from them. We knew he was a smart young man. Shame about the bafflegab.

Great column!  Read any corporate annual report and you'll find it filled with the same kind of posturing bafflegab about "stakeholders", "corporate social responsibility" and "sustainability". They dedicate people as full-time generators of this bullcrap and to sucking up to NGOs.

Corporate Social Responsibiliy - Milton's Loophole

Peter Foster:

It was more than 40 years ago that economist Milton Friedman described the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as “pure and unadulterated socialism.” He noted that the embrace of CSR by businessmen helped to “strengthen the already prevalent view that the pursuit of profits is wicked and immoral and must be curbed and controlled by external forces. Once this view is adopted, the external forces that curb the market will not be the social consciences, however highly developed, of the pontificating executives; it will be the iron fist of government bureaucrats.”

In fact, a new “iron fist” has emerged in the intervening period to “curb the market.” It belongs not to bureaucrats but to radical environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), who have achieved a stunning amount of boardroom influence. They have done this, paradoxically, by learning from Prof. Friedman, and in particular by exploiting what might be called “Milton’s loophole.”

Prof. Friedman said that part of an executive’s role, beyond his primary task of serving shareholders, was to conform to “the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical customs.” ...

There is not a company on Earth that now fails to pay obeisance to the essentially socialist notion of “sustainable development” (SD), ... Corporations keen to achieve their CSR and SD badges have, meanwhile, found themselves cast as mouthpieces for radical environmentalism.

... A classic example appeared in a recent ad in USA Today. The ad features the names of both California-based grocery chain Trader Joe’s and ENGO ForestEthics...

It seems astonishing that a company would allow itself to be the ventriloquist’s puppet for so much misinformation. ...

Today there were two responses, one from Greenpeace Canada:

[From the first letter] ... firms would not respond to environmentalist bullying if they didn’t think it would help their bottom lines [more accurately avoid having their bottom lines damaged by smear campaigns].

[From Greenpeace]... Milton Friedman would surely have approved of this Greenpeace tactic: private actors negotiating with private actors for the public good ...

The first admits the "bullying" which Greenpeace calls "negotiating".  What neither will acknowledge is that the Trader Joe ad is dishonest scare-mongering aimed at intimidating oil sands producers and fund raising.  Greenpeace's and ForestEthics' "bottom lines" come from the money they raise from whipping up public environmental hysteria. Milton Friedman would definitely NOT approve of such dishonest, extortionate tactics.