Conflict of Interest Ridden World Resources Institute, its The Access Initiative

Beware of conflict of interest ridden World Resources Institute, its The Access Initiative
The Access Initiative (TAI) of Washington based World Resources Institute (WRI), is funded by European Commission, Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Swedish International Development Agency, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, World Bank and Libra Foundation.

WRI is funded by likes of Shell. The largest energy company and the second-largest company in the world in terms of revenues has been deemed responsible for the death of Ken Saro Wiwa, the Nigerian author and environmental activist.

Is it possible for the members of The Access Initiative, WRI to give voice to their moral outrage and support the message of National Union of Ogoni Students dated 4th January, 2011 issued to mark the 18th anniversary of the UN declaration of the “year of the indigenous peoples” appealing to the Dutch Parliament to break its silence by making the Shell Oil Company liable for the exploitation of Ogoni people, their environmental and its role in the destabilization of Niger Delta communities and its demand that the Shell Oil be expelled from Nigeria?

Another funder of WRI is DuPont, the world's third largest chemical company in the world.

DuPont has faced fines from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency‎ and litigation over releases of the Teflon processing aid perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, also known as C8) from their works in Washington, West Virginia.

PFOA contaminated drinking water led to increased levels in the bodies of residents in the surrounding area. The court-appointed C8 Science Panel is investigating "whether or not there is a probable link between C8 exposure and disease in the community."

The C8 Science Panel started releasing data in October 2008 and linked high cholesterol but not diabetes to exposure. DuPont has also faced U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings from the shareholder group DuPont Shareholders for Fair Value over the company's transparency regarding the chemical.

DuPont has agreed to sharply reduce its output of PFOA, and was one of eight companies to sign on with the USEPA's 2010/2015 PFOA Stewardship Program. The agreement calls for the reduction of "facility emissions and product content of PFOA and related chemicals on a global basis by 95 percent no later than 2010 and to work toward eliminating emissions and product content of these chemicals by 2015." However, questions remain if the biological effects to people from this chemical translate into health effects.

DuPont is a founding member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development with DuPont CEO (at the time) Chad Holliday being Chairman of the WBCSD from 2000 to 2001.

Gerard Colby Zilg, wrote Du Pont: Behind the Nylon Curtain, a critical account of the role of the DuPont family in American social, political and economic history. The book authored in 1974 was suppressed by DuPont. Lyle Stuart re-released an extended version, Du Pont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain in 1984.
Researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts Amherst ranked DuPont as the largest corporate producer of air pollution in the US. The study found DuPont's most toxic pollution comprised chloroprene, sulfuric acid, and chlorine based on Toxics Release Inventory data. The most massive releases came in the form of more than 4 million pounds of carbonyl sulfide followed by 2 million pounds of hydrochloric acid.

DuPont announced that it would stop selling CFCs with a full page advertisement in the April 27, 1992 New York Times stating “we will stop selling CFCs as soon as possible, but no later than year end 1995 in the US and other developed countries”, people in developing countries are sub-humans in any case.

As of 2011, DuPont is the largest producer of titanium dioxide in the world, primarily provided as a white pigment used in the paper industry. DuPont has its R&D facilities located in India as well among other countries. It makes an average investment of $1.3 billion annually in a diverse range of technologies for many markets including agriculture, genetic traits, biofuels, automotive, construction, electronics, chemicals and industrial materials.

DuPont doesn't report, illegally, “substantial risk of injury to health or the environment” of its chemicals from the findings of 57 of its own studies, it gets a relatively negligible penalty of having to dish out a few million dollars. In fact, despite a history of serious chemical violations, the company was recently allowed to skip federal review required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for one of its newest projects, because it falls under the broad category of "clean energy."

This is only the tip of the iceberg in a long line of environmental abuses from Dupont.

In 2005, Dupont was required to pay more than $10 million—a record civil penalty that EPA enforcers called "a strong message"— for hiding the dangers of C8, a toxic chemical, for two decades; thousands of people have also filed two class-action lawsuits and groups such as the Dupont Accountability Coalition have been formed in recent years to fight the company's record of environmental abuses. On the contrary, $10 million is just a drop in the bucket when you look at the fact that DuPont brought in $27.33 billion in revenue and $1.75 billion in net profit in 2009 alone. Did EPA really send DuPont a strong message?

Most recently, on December 21, U.S. EPA announced that DuPont will have to pay another $3.3 million for 57 toxic substances violations related to illegally not submitting 176 chemical toxicity studies on rats. Again, a few million dollars may be a lot to an individual, but it is hardly anything to a company that manufacturers chemicals used by millions of people every day. One more time, EPA enforcers seem to think they have gotten DuPont to pay for its negligence. I imagine DuPont's higher-ups are laughing about the penalty, or not even thinking about it at all.

Furthermore, despite the company's bad record, it has received $8.9 million in stimulus funds for a project creating biofuel from seaweed. The review process was fast-tracked because it falls under the category of "clean energy," but is this really enough of a reason to completely trust a company like DuPont? I'm all for clean energy, but I would feel better if the federal government spent more time reviewing the project, given Dupont's record.

Despite answering yes to the question “Does the proposed project have highly uncertain and potentially significant environmental effects or involve unique or unknown environmental risks?” and admitting the project entailed such risks as the use of “hazardous or toxic materials,” “additional chemical storage,” and “additional waste handling capabilities” in a three-page questionnaire, energy officials found that this first phase of the project could be excluded from NEPA review. (Note: BP also bypassed NEPA review for its Deepwater Horizon rig, and, like DuPont above, for the first phase of a project to to capture carbon emissions from oil refineries and store them beneath oil fields.)
WRI funder, Rio Tinto Group, the world’s third- largest mining company has been deemed guilty of collusion with fascist and racist regimes and faces allegations of human, labour and environmental rights violations around the world and over decades.

Other funders like PepsiCo, Syngenta, Wal-Mart faces opposition from affected communities and those organisations that are not funded by corporations for CSR. Others include World Business Council for Sustainable Development too.

Lalanath De Silva is Director and Monika Kerdeman is the project coordinatorof The Access Initiative (TAI), World Resources Institute (WRI).

It claims to be working to promote Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration made at the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992.

It is also claimed that Principle 10 is the foundation of the Aarhus Convention (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe [UNECE] set up in 1947 by ECOSOC).

The UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters was adopted on 25th June 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus at the Fourth Ministerial Conference in the 'Environment for Europe' process.

The Aarhus Convention is a new kind of environmental agreement. The Convention:

Links environmental rights and human rights
Acknowledges that we owe an obligation to future generations
Establishes that sustainable development can be achieved only through the involvement of all stakeholders
Links government accountability and environmental protection
Focuses on interactions between the public and public authorities in a democratic context.

Principle 10 states: “Environmental issues are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level. At the national level, each individual shall have appropriate access to information concerning the environment that is held by public authorities, including information on hazardous materials and activities in their communities, and the opportunity to participate in decision-making processes. States shall facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation by making information widely available. Effective access to judicial and administrative proceedings, including redress and remedy, shall be provided”

The Access Initiative began in 1999 claims to be active in 45 countries.

TAI is led by seven civil society organizations (the Core Team). Each Core Team member acts as a regional lead:

Africa: Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE) (Uganda) and Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme Cameroon, BDCPC (Cameroon);

Southeast Asia: Thailand Environment Institute (TEI) (Thailand);

South Asia: Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE) (India);

Europe: Environmental Management and Law Association (EMLA) (Hungary);

Latin America: Corporación PARTICIPA (Chile) and Iniciativa de Acceso-México (Mexico);

All Other: World Resources Institute (WRI) (United States).

WRI also acts as the secretariat for the global TAI network.

WRI Board of Directors
James A. Harmon (Chairman of the Board)

Chairman, Caravel Management LLC; former President of the Export-Import Bank, United States

Harriet (Hattie) Babbitt (Vice Chair)
Former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, United States

James Gustave Speth (Founder and Trustee Emeritus)
Former Administrator, United Nations Development Programme, United States

William D. Ruckelshaus (Chairman Emeritus)
Strategic Director, Madrona Venture Group; former Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, United States

Alice (Tish) F. Emerson (Vice-Chair Emeritus)
President Emerita, Wheaton College, United States

Roberto Artavia
President of VIVA Trust, Costa Rica

Frances Beinecke
President, Natural Resources Defense Council, United States

Afsaneh Beschloss
President and CEO, The Rock Creek Group, United States

Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Former President of Brazil; currently Professor-at-Large at the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies at Brown University, United States

Robin Chase
Co-Founder & Former CEO, Zipcar; CEO, GoLoco.org, United States

Tiffany Clay
Student, Harvard Business School, United States

Leslie Dach
Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Government Relations, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., United States

Daniel L Doctoroff
President of Bloomberg, LP, United States

Jamshyd N. Godrej
Chairman and Managing Director, Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co. Ltd., India

Al Gore
Chairman of Generation Investment Management, London; and former Vice President of the United States, United States

Chen Jining
Professor and Executive Vice President, Tsinghua University (Beijing), China

Jonathan Lash
President, World Resources Institute, United States

Kathleen McGinty
Managing Director, Strategic Growth, Weston Solutions, Inc., United States

Preston R. Miller, Jr.
Partner, The Tremont Group, LLC, United States

Douglas R. Oberhelman
Chairman and CEO, Caterpillar, Inc., United States

Göran Persson
Chairman, Sveaskog; Former Prime Minister of Sweden, Sweden

Michael Polsky
President and Chief Executive Officer, Invenergy, United States

Bill Richardson
Former Governor of New Mexico, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former Energy Secretary, United States

Theodore Roosevelt IV
Managing Director, Barclays Capital, United States

Stephen M. Ross
Chairman and CEO, Related Companies LP, United States

Alison Sander
Globalization Topic Advisor, Boston Consulting Group, United States

Lee M. Thomas
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Rayonier, United States

Todd S. Thomson
Chairman, Dynasty Financial Partners, United States

Dr. Susan Tierney
Managing Principal, Analysis Group, Inc. United States

Clinton A. Vince
Partner, SNR Denton, Chair of Energy, Transport and Infrastructure sector, United States

Diana H. Wall
Director, School of Global Environmental Sustainability, Professor of Biology and Senior Research Scientist, Natural Resource Ecology Lab, United States

Daniel Weiss
Co-founder and Managing Partner, Angeleno Group, United States

The only Indian Jamshyd N. Godrej on the WRI Board is is the Past President of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Past President of the Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association.
Mr. Godrej is the Chairman of the CII Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre. The Centre is housed in a LEED Platinum demonstration building which is the first green building in India and the greenest building in the world at the time when it was rated. The Green Business Centre is a Centre of Excellence for green buildings, energy, energy conservation, non-conventional energy sources, water policy, water conservation, etc.

Godrej and Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. manufactures and markets refrigerators; washing machines; air conditioners; office furniture; home furniture; security equipment for banks (such as safes, strong room doors, bank lockers, etc.) and for commercial establishments and homes; locks and latches, forklift trucks and warehousing equipment; process equipment for chemical, petrochemical, refineries and allied industries; precision tools for sheet metal, zinc, aluminium and thermoplastics; real estate development.
Godrej is the Chairman of Aspen Institute – India. He is the Vice President of World Wide Fund for Nature – International and was the President of World Wide Fund for Nature – India from 2000 to 2007.

WRI Donors


Governments and Multilateral Organizations

African Development Bank
Asian Development Bank
Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
German Society for International Cooperation
Inter-American Development Bank
Irish Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government
Irish Department of Foreign Affairs
KFW Bankengruppe
Maryland Department of Agriculture
Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
U.K. Department for International Development
U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office
U.S. Agency for International Development
U.S. Department of Agriculture
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
United Nations Development Programme
United Nations Environment Programme
The World Bank

Foundations

Abramson Family Foundation
Acacia Conservation Fund
Ray C. Anderson Foundation
AVINA Foundation
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Cabell & Shirley Brand Charitable Lead Trust
Judy Buechner Advised Fund
Margaret A. Cargill Foundation
Chino Cienega Foundation
ClimateWorks Foundation
William J. Clinton Foundation
Cleo E. Collins Trust
Cox Family Fund
Roy Disney Family Foundation
Doctoroff Family Foundation
The Louisa Duemling Charitable Lead Trust
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
The Energy Foundation
Burdick Faulkner Charitable Fund
Ford Foundation
Coleman Fung Foundation
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Gergen Family Fund of the Boston Foundation
German Marshall Fund of the United States
G.O. Forward Fund of The Saint Paul Foundation
The Greene-Milstein Family Foundation
Harbor Lights Foundation
The Harmon Foundation
The Henry Foundation
William W. Hildreth Fund
Swanee Hunt Family Foundation
The J & L Foundation
Joyce Foundation
JSRM Foundation
Knobloch Family Foundation
The Libra Foundation
Linden Trust for Conservation
The Lookout Foundation
Ernest Lowenstein Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Marisla Foundation
The John Merck Fund
Preston R. and Carol Smith Miller Fund
Joyce S. Mills 1997 Family Trust
Leo Model Foundation
Monomoy Fund
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
Open Society Institute
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
The Prospect Hill Foundation
Joan & Robert Rechnitz Philanthropic Fund
Red Crane Foundation
William K. & Elizabeth B. Reilly Family Trust
Robertson Foundation
Robbins Fund for Environmental Sustainability
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Rockefeller Foundation
Robert P. Rotella Foundation
The Ruckelshaus Charitable Fund
Richard & Ellen Sandor Family Foundation
Sam Shine Foundation
Shultz Family Fund
Skyemar Foundation
James Gustave Speth Fund for the Environment
The Lee and Byron Stookey Fund
The Waterloo Foundation
West Hill Foundation for Nature
Whalesback Foundation
Zennström Philanthropies

Corporations

(contributions larger than one thousand dollars)

Strategic Relationships learn more here >>>(Page Not Found)

Alcoa and Alcoa Foundation
Caterpillar
Citi and Citi Foundation
FedEx
NewPage Corporation
SC Johnson
Shell International and Shell Foundation
Toyota Motor North America
United Technologies Corporation
UPS and UPS Foundation

Corporate Consultative Group learn more here >>>

3M Corporation
Abbott Laboratories
Akzo Nobel
Alcoa
Autodesk
Belkin International
Caterpillar
Citi
Constellation Energy Group
Dell
Disney Worldwide Services
DuPont
Eastman Kodak
EMC Corporation
Goldman Sachs
HSBC Holdings
Johnson & Johnson
JPMorgan Chase
Kimberly-Clark
Merck & Co.
Morgan Stanley
NewPage Corporation
News Corporation
Pfizer
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Related
Rio Tinto
SAS Institute
SC Johnson
Sempra Energy
Shell
Siemens Corporation
Target
Tetra Pak International
United Technologies Corporation
UPS
Wal-Mart Stores
Wells Fargo
Weyerhaeuser Company

Program/Project Partners

ADM Capital Foundation
Advanced Micro Devices
ARD
Bloomberg
Covanta Energy Corporation
Deutsche Bank
Entrix
GE Foundation
Goldman Sachs Foundation
Interface
John Deere
Levi-Strauss & Co.
Map Royalty
Mars, Incorporated
Mondi
Northeast Utilities
PepsiCo
Staples
Syngenta
The Tiffany and Co. Foundation
Urban Mass Transit Company Limited
Wal-Mart Stores and Wal-Mart Foundation
Wells Fargo Foundation

Supporters

Angeleno Group
Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation
ERDAS
ESRI
Footage of the World
Google
Invenergy LLC
Novartis
Related
RSUPPORT
SiVest Group, Inc.
Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation

Individuals

(contributions larger than one hundred dollars)

Mark and Meg Alberts
David C. Aldrich
Richard Alper
Allan Alson and Sue Ann Glaser
Sudha Arunachalam
Duncan Austin
Harriet and Bruce Babbitt
Benjamin Baker
Geoffrey W. Baldwin
Manish Bapna
Douglas A. Barker and Sam C. Kilpatrick
Steven Barker
Jess Beebe and Gwen Rino
Matthew J. Beehr
Frances Beinecke
Wendy W. Benchley
Charles and Gail Bennett
Alan and Marilyn Bergman
Lisa and Josh Bernstein
Afsaneh Beschloss
Mr. and Mrs. Robert O. Blake
Joseph Blessing
David Blood
Norman Booth and Gail Zink
Philip and Nalanda Bowman
Anthony Boxall
Anita and Barney Brannen
Steven R. Brooks
Laurie and Brice Buchanan
Roger Burkhardt & Jane Frankhanel
Robert Burt
Steve Canton
Karen Carruthers and Joseph Nitiss
Luther and Marsha Carter
Charles Cerf and Cynthia Dunbar
Nathaniel M. Chamberlin
Charlene Chan and Ian Miller
Valerie Chase
Patricia and David Chastain
Barbara Chu
Tiffany Clay
Samuel C. Cohen
Elizabeth Cook
David Crowley
Elizabeth Curran
David C. Cushing
Leslie Dach
Kevin W. Davis
Robert Day
Duane Degler
Tatyana Deryugina
Catherine Despujols
Leo Devine
Stephany Diana
Patrick Eastwood
Sandy Edry
David Eikenberry
Jodene Eikenberry
Mohamed and Patricia El-Ashry
Christine Elias
John LeMoyne Ellicott
Gary P. Ellis
Paul Elwood
David Elwood
Alice F. Emerson
Richard Epstein and Beth Weinstein
Andrew Escoll and Tina Snider
Adam Fass
Jill Feasley and Kurt Lawson
Adrienne Ferriss
Wendy Fierin
Tracey I. Fine
Kay Firor and Kent Osterberg
Craig and Diane Fischer
Ted and Barbara Flicker
Vivian Fong
Thomas and Elizabeth Fox
E. Marianne Gabel
William Gagliardi
Mark Gajewski/ G Squared Art
Roy Garrigus
Robert W. Gillespie
Spencer Glendon
Sharon Goldwater
Susan Goodwin
Mark Gudiksen
Alice F. Gutman
David P. Hackett
Ridgway M. Hall, Jr.
John S. and Nancy C. Hammond
Leslie Hand
Laurence Hausman
Cynthia Helms
Daniel Hildreth
Urs Hölzle
Sarah F. Hunnewell
Nancy Ignatius
Margaret Inokuma
Renee Jakobs
Kirsty Jenkinson
Gary Jewett
April Johnson
Ralph and Bonnie Johnson
Dr. and Mrs. Charles R. Jorgensen
Rebecca Kennedy
Lenore and A. Khan
Shad Khan
Peter S. Knight
Jonathan Koehn
Eugene and Claire Kopp
Gail Kowatch
Steven Kramer
William A. Krug, Jr.
Paul Kuttler
Helen P. Ladd
Terilynn Langsev
Jonathan Lash
David LaVine
Jennifer and Christian Layke
Arthur A. Levin
Joel Lewenstein
Hava Liberman
Lawrence and Dana Linden
David Lindsay
Frederick and Marcy Long
Gretchen Long
Thomas E. Lovejoy III
Jan and Lois Mares
Elizabeth Margid
John and Adrienne Mars
Gregory Marshall
Sona Mason
Jessica T. Mathews
John Maupin
Kirk Mayer
Jay McAllister
Katie McGinty and Karl Hausker
Alicia McLoughlin
Wilhelm M. Merck
Valerie and Medhat Michael
Harold Miller
Mark B. Milstein
George P. Mitchell
George G. Montgomery, Jr.
Katharine B. Morgan
Douglas Keith Morris
Julius Moschitz
Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Mountcastle
A.J. Mowry
Cassandra Murphy
Robin and Mary Claire Murphy
Seanan Murphy
Lawrence Myers
John Nay
George L. Ohrstrom II
Ronald L. Olson
Thomas B. Patton
Rich Peckham
Victor Peters
Dave and Ann Phillips
Margaret Pike
Michael J. Pirog
Susan Place
Laurence and Marjorie Porter
Christopher Porto
Susan Pozer
C.K. Prahalad
Philip Rand
Janet Ranganathan
Gene Reeves
Mario and Heather Rivera
Larry Rockefeller
Hein Roehrig
Anne Rosow and Patrick McNulty
Ari Rosenfield
Daniel Rubins
Philip Rushton
John and Virginia Sall
Paul Salniker
Alison Sander
Christopher Sanders
Tedd Saunders
Mrs. William B.H. Sawyer
John Schivell
Adam Schleifer
Pam Schulz
Theresa Sedlack
Michael J. Shannon
Rebecca Silver
Mark and Donna Simon
Edith and Bruce Smart
Adam Sonfield
Jon and Cleo Sonneborn
Scott Spangler
David and Ellen Springer
Elizabeth Steele
Bradford Stoesser
Edward L. Strohbehn, Jr.
Murali Swaminathan
Burton Swanson
Jake M. Swenson
Amy and Mark Tercek
Joan E. and Lee B. Thomas, Jr.
Lee M. Thomas
William L. Thomas
Laura Thompson
Todd S. Thomson
Sue and John Tierney
Lillian and Carlos Torres
Janis M. Torrey
Mr. and Mrs. Russell Train
Dan Tunstall
Barbara Gazey Turner
Laura D. Tyson
Steve Usdan
Jean van der Tak
Robert Vernon
Clinton A. Vince
Emily V. Wade
Robert and Kimberly Walker
Dr. Diana H. Wall
Ms. Michael Ann Walstad
Chris Wanha
Jake Werksman
Nancy Wessling
Marilyn Wilhelm
Ann M. Williams
Ellen Williams
Andrew and Christine Winston
Amy Yates
Jean Yuan
Cody Zindler

Other Organizations

Advanced Conservation Strategies
American Conservation Association, Inc.
American Forest Foundation
Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
China Business Council for Sustainable Development
Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning
Clean Air Initiative
Combined Federal Campaign of the National Capital Area
Earth Justice
Electric Power Research Institute
Environmental Investigation Agency
Global CCS Institute
Hong Kong Productivity Council
Institute for Sustainable Communities
International Union for Conservation of Nature
Nordic Agency for Development and Ecology
Pan American Health Organization
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Project AWARE Foundation
Rainforest Alliance
Stockholm Environment Institute
Strategies for The Global Environment
Sustainable Forestry Initiative
The Nature Conservancy
UNEP-WCMC
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax
United Way California Capital Region
United Way of the National Capital Area
University of Maryland
University of Miami
West Virginia University
Western Governors’ Association
World Business Council for Sustainable Development
World Wildlife Fund

Employee Matching Gifts

ConocoPhillips
Google
Microsoft
PG&E Corporation
TPG Capital
Wellington Management Company