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It's not often I go to Whitehall for a green awards ceremony fronted by Sir Trevor McDonald and hosted by a multinational infamous for its animal testing. That's where I cycled last night, though, to Proctor & Gamble's inaugural Future Friendly Awards.
Let's get my moral ambivalence out of the way. P&G is the name behind household brands such as Ariel, Fairy, Flash and a whole lot more, and these awards were giving £40,000 worth of prizes to local eco heroes around the UK -- officially A Good Thing.
On the other hand, P&G's Future Friendly badge was launched with some controversy last September because it looked like an independently awarded one -- such as the Soil Association sticker -- but was in fact a self-awarded marketing logo. P&G also has a long history of runs-in with animal rights groups because of its testing on animals. While the megacorp admits to animal testing, guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, ferrets, rats and mice are all on its testing list and the details don't make for comfy reading. Campaigners Uncaged are organising a Global Boycott P&G Day in May.
So you can see why I felt a little like I was supping with the green-dressed devil as I enjoyed an evening of locally sourced and organic food at Whitehall's beautiful Banqueting House. Sir Trevor, who I have a soft spot for from his News at Ten days, said the night was about "all of us having a desire to move beyond the problem and become part of the solution." Tamzin Outhwaite was around somewhere, too (pictured above). P&G's UK boss Irwin Lee added that the awards were about "individuals making a difference in their communities to make them more sustainable."
The 26 finalists in four categories were certainly the real deal, however. The awards, accompanied by a Take That soundtrack, were doled out to a giant elephant made from recycled materials, a nappy swapping site and a Scottish reuse scheme. The full winners' list is on the Future Friendly site. Plus, each winner got a cool £10k to do more of the good stuff they're already doing.
Still, the whole thing felt contradictory. It was very slickly stage-managed, and the winners -- the real greenies -- didn't get to say anything at all on stage. Meanwhile, the corporate sponsors (including people we respect at SmartPlanet, like the Energy Saving Trust) enjoyed several minutes to plug their work.
The event had some cute green touches, from the organic food and the pot plants to take away (rather than disposable cut flowers) through to the recycled 'green carpet' and the horde of Toyota Prius taxis from Green Tomato Cars, ferrying people to and fro. Evidently there aren't enough Priuses to go round, as I did spot a bunch of distinctly non-hybrid Addison Lee people carriers waiting outside too.
There was some interesting chat and gossip. One nominee told me that "if you'd told me five years ago I'd be here for a green award from P&G I'd never have believed you." Another, the maker of an eco product, guiltily confessed to having recently brought a petrol-guzzling boat.
Trevor's speech was good (what did I expect? The man's an autocue genius) but also featured some shameless Ariel promotion. Without mentioning Ariel, he noted the jump from two per cent of people washing at low temperatures two years ago to the 17 per cent doing so now. He also plugged the amount of water you can save by ditching pre-wash cycles.
I'm certainly glad I went. I got to see some friends and I watched £40,000 awarded to genuine carbon-cutting or resource-saving heroes. But ultimately P&G made no extra concrete commitments to being more ethical or sustainable and I couldn't help but feel it was just chucking money around to make a nice Future Friendly fig leaf -- without actually changing the status quo inside P&G. I hope I'm proved very wrong by the time the 2009 awards roll round.
Future Friendly 2008 Award winners
Local Champion Award
Doug McLaren for Dundee reuse scheme (+44 01382 322 400)
Youth Creativity Award
Ellie The Elephant Goes Environmental at Spires Academy
Adult Creativity Award
Nappyvalley.co.uk (beating off two of our faves, Jamble Magazine and The Nag)
Adult Innovation Award
Water Watch
Youth Innovation Award
Water Wizard
Community Action Award
Sustainable Youlgrave (impressively beating Liftshare)
Click below to watch the Digital News Agency's vid of the evening
10 April 2008 11:25am
Good article. Very interesting that P&G tried to pass it off as independent; and the plugging for their products on the night compared with allowing the prize recipients to say anything. Thanks for mentioning us and linking to our Day of Action against P&G (Sat. 17th May 2008).
We would agree that P&G uses these sort of awards as a fig leaf/greenwashing. It is a tactic of theirs that we are familiar with ? the funding or prize-money on offer is doubtless of immense help to those that receive it, but really is a drop in the ocean (almost ?loose change?) for the company with has an annual turn-over of $68 billion! And we would probably ? on balance and bearing in mind we are primarily an anti-viv organisation ? urge people not to participate and help P&G with their greenwashing.
Yours
Max Newton
Campaigns Co-ordinator
www.uncaged.co.uk & www.boycottpandg.co.uk
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Discover the brilliant experienced people who are helping SmartPlanet through the green and ethical minefield.
