Welcome to the Alternative Careers Guide
This booklet has been written and designed by an autonomous group of people, concerned about the ecological and social impacts of our lifestyle choices. The idea was instigated because of the fact that Leeds University still allows many 'unethical' companies (who pay) to recruit its graduates. The University has already banned advertising around the campus by petrochemical companies. This guide aims to invite you to question, find out about and discuss the issues surrounding the corporate world yourself. It does not aim to give you solutions (because we do not necessarily have them!) and the more brainpower, the more equal and coherent our solutions can be.
We feel that it is important to highlight the lack of transparency in the corporate world, so that people do not loose their potential to create a better environment for all. This guide will cover a general overview of whats wrong with the corporate world and then focus on the sectors of Finance, Armaments, Pharmaceutical, Food & Distribution, and Petrochemical. There is also a section on ethical and unconventional careers and work.
This booklet particularly focuses on Careers, for further information towards sustainable living (espec in leeds) checkout the Green Guide
Why where you work matters
Trans - National Corporations are becoming increasingly prominent actors on the global political stage. They fund a significant part of the running of governments through direct and indirect taxes (corporate taxes and their employees paying taxes), which gives them powerful political influence; and in many 'developing' countries they provide services, such as health, that the respective government is not able to provide. Hence they are slowly taking over the job of governing - without being democratically elected! You might be asking the question why not more is being done about this...well the issue is that the mainstream media is very much controlled by profits, and companies are very good at keeping a low profile about their 'unethical' activities, by hiding it under 'greenwash' and 'whitewash'. For example BP, recently reinvented their logo to 'Beyond Petroleum' with a 'green' symbol. They actually spent more on their advertising campaign than they did on renewable energy or other green projects that they were advertising! We are not going to go into all the reasons as there are too many - more will be explained in the different sectors.
The crux is that by working for these companies you are working towards the degeneration of our planet and people. There are many others ways to make a good living...which benefits you, therefore other people around you; the planet and therefore all other sentient beings!
Note: If you were thinking about 'working from within', we ask you to think again because many have tried this and found that they ended up putting their energy more towards the company than what they intended to do...or they got sacked early on before they had any significant influence to change processes from within. Strategies tend to be very rigid to change if it does not increase profits.
Pharmaceutical Sector
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble (P&G) is America’s biggest maker of household products, with at least 250 brands in six main categories: laundry and cleaning (detergents), paper goods (toilet paper), beauty care (cosmetics, shampoos), food and beverages (coffee, snacks), feminine care (sanitary towels and tampons) and health care (toothpaste, medicine).
Environmental record
In Germany, reducing waste paper and plastic isn't just a nice idea or good public relations, it's mandated. A spokesman for P&G’s corporate environmental affairs office has said "In America, consumers' primary needs are price and function. Waste minimization and environment impact are not a big issue for most people. Some items are eco-friendly-highly concentrated, with reduced packaging - but people are not demanding them like the Germans do. It’s just too expensive. We're not interested in anything similar over here.”
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts have identified Procter & Gamble as the 52nd-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, with roughly 350,000 pounds of toxic chemicals released annually into the air. Major pollutants indicated by the study include manganese compounds, sulfuric acid, epichlorohydrin, and bromine.
Censorship
CBS, one of the big US TV networks, pulled a handful of rerun episodes because of pressure from P&G. The incident has been viewed as a worrying example of a large advertiser being able to influence the editorial content of a network's programming. P&G is understood to have found the subject matter of these episodes too controversial, particularly one that featured a child custody case and a gun-owning mother. Other dropped episodes touch on subjects such as the death penalty, abortion and inter-race marriage. P&G signed a notably large $300m (£211m) advertising contract with CBS's parent company, Viacom, in May 2001. The bulk of this - about a third of P&G's spend on domestic TV advertising - goes to CBS
Also in the US, a grassroots pressure group, “Neighbor to Neighbor”, have been campaigning for a boycott of coffee from El Salvador. They placed an advertisement on a Boston affiliate of CBS. The advert, urged consumers to boycott North America’s best-selling brand coffee, Folger. Folger (a P&G subsidiary) buys some of its coffee from El Salvador. The advert claimed that wealthy coffee planters fund the right-wing death squads responsible for the disappearance and murder of tens of thousands of people in El Salvador. The day after the ad was shown, P&G announced it was indefinitely suspending all advertising on the channel for its entire range of products. The TV station estimates P&G advertising revenue at one million dollars a year. Neighbor to Neighbor have been effectively frozen out of TV advertising — since P&G made its announcement, only one other TV station has run the advert. "In El Salvador, death squads silence their opposition violently", says the director of Neighbor to Neighbor. "Here in the US Procter & Gamble is attempting to silence us using the power of the dollar."
Appalling working conditions
P&G distributes Citrus Hill orange juice. The oranges come from Florida farms and are picked largely by itinerant workers. An investigative report revealed that migrant workers live on the farms in abysmal conditions, without even a bare minimum of comfort, sanitation or dignity. Yet, in return for room and board they must pay their employer an amount in excess of their salaries. In a vicious circle, each worker becomes deeper in debt to the landlords.
Illegal GMOs
In 2001, P&G recalled hundreds of thousands of cans of Pringles snack chips in Japan because they contained genetically modified potatoes not yet approved by regulators there for human consumption.
Burma
While most Western companies have already pulled out of Burma in response to the human-rights record there, P&G continues to work with the Burmese regime. This is despite a specific request by Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's democratically elected leader, for foreign companies not to come to Burma until democracy does.
Animal Abuse
P&G is notorious for its continuous animal abuse, despite promises to do otherwise.
At a shareholder meeting on 10 October 2000, P&G shareholders raised their voice on the issue of animal abuse. ‘Every year, thousands of rabbits, ferrets, Guinea pigs, hamsters, rats and mice are killed to test cosmetic and household products. P&G engages in these tests despite the fact that they are not required by law and despite the fact that more reliable and humane alternatives do exist,’ said Bill Lauterwasser speaking on behalf of himself and the national organisation ‘In Defense of Animals’, also a shareholder in Procter and Gamble.
Kimberly-Clark
Kimberly-Clark is an American corporation that produces mostly paper-based consumer products. Kimberly-Clark brand name products include "Kleenex" facial tissue, "Kotex" feminine hygiene products, "Cottonelle" toilet paper, Wypall utility wipes, "KimWipes" scientific cleaning wipes, and "Huggies" disposable diapers. Based in Irving, Texas, it has approximately 63,900 employees. It is one of the largest consumer companies in the world with a turnover of $14 billion.
Environmental controversy
In 2005, Greenpeace launched a campaign against Kimberly-Clark because they have been linked to the logging of ancient Boreal forests. The environmental organisation charges that in North America, less than 19% of the pulp that Kimberly-Clark uses for its disposable tissue products comes from recycled sources. The rest comes directly from forests like Canada’s Boreal. Most of the recycled fibre that Kimberly-Clark does use goes directly into tissue products sold to institutions like theatre chains, hotels and sports stadiums. Most of the consumer products including Kleenex brand products contain no recycled fibre whatsoever. Despite the fact that it has the capacity to make a much higher percentage of its products from post-consumer recycled fibre, Kimberly-Clark chose, in 2004, to use 3 million metric tonnes (3.3 million tons) of virgin fibre to produce its tissue paper products globally.
The corporation is a purchaser of pulp from clearcutting operations in ancient forests in Ontario and Alberta, Canada that are home to threatened wildlife such as woodland caribou and wolverines. Clearcutting is a devastating and unsustainable form of logging where most if not all trees are removed from an area of forest. What’s left behind is a barren landscape that can no longer support wildlife species. Kimberly-Clark turns these ancient forests into products that are flushed down the toilet or thrown away. This is despite the widespread availability of recycled fibre — fibre that is often less expensive than fibre made from trees.
According to Kimberly-Clark's latest sustainability report, released in April 2006, Kimberly-Clark has a corporate policy against the logging of coastal temperate rainforests of British Columbia, Canada. In July of 2006, Greenpeace, in a report entitled “the Chain of Lies”, revealed that Kimberly-Clark had been using pulp from coastal temperate rainforests since at least 2004.
Finance Sector
KPMG
KPMG's UK turnover in 2006 was $2610 million which is more than the GDP of Sierra Leone and East Timor combined. This is a frightening amount of money that one accountancy firm deals with and it begs some questions. Why is KPMG making so much money? How do the people in these countries survive when a few thousand accountants in suits make more money than their whole nation? Why is this injustice allowed to continue?
The answer to the first question is easy. They have broken the law.
1. KPMG has sold questionable tax shelters. When confronted KPMG executives refused to answer direct questions. One irritated senator asked a KPMG senior executive to "try an honest answer." 16 former KPMG partners who are accused of tax fraud in connection with the sale of certain tax shelters. The government didn't dare file criminal charges against KPMG because an indictment alone would have driven it out of business, leaving too few big accounting firms to go around but it was fined $456 million.
2. Four current and former KPMG auditors have settled a lawsuit that accused them of helping Xerox Corp. overstate revenue by $3 billion. Ronald Safran and Michael Conway, KPMG partners who directly oversaw Xerox audits from 1997 to 2000, agreed to pay $150,000 each.
Does this fit with KPMG's Corporate Responsibility?
Corporate Responsibility is at the heart of our values and all around the world KPMG is committed to its communities — working to address poverty and make a positive difference in health and prosperity. This commitment also helps to make KPMG a more dynamic and successful organization.
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Clients
PwC is providing government relations services to Uzbekistan, the Central Asian country that is a prime ally in President Bush's "War on Terror." The former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray said
"Karimov [President of Uzbekistan] is one of the most vicious dictators in the world, a man who is responsible for the death of thousands of people. Prisoners are boiled to death in Uzbek jails."
Even for a financial corporation that is nasty company to keep.
The third-world
In return for debt relief third-world companies are forced to 'privatise' their services. Here PwC are given money by the UK government to push privatisation. Tanzania was forced to privatise its water as a condition of international debt forgiveness. After two years the project was behind schedule and no pipes had been installed. In Tabata, Tanzania most of the houses have had electricity but due to the lack of investment less than 1000 of the 3.5 million people have water. This has been repeated in Sierra Leone, Trinidad & Guyana and Bolivia. Time and time again it is the consultants like PwC who make the money and the people are left with higher water bills to pay the consultants.
Greed
PricewaterhouseCoopers has been fined $5m for getting too close to its clients and helping them to make their profits look better.
Deloitte
Mr Justice Tomlinson will choose words carefully. So when he said there were “myriad hopeless inconsistencies and implausibilities in the case” we can safely assume that Deloitte’s case was being comprehensively rubbished. This was the 13 year legal battle Deloitte spent fighting the Bank of England costing the bank (i.e. UK tax payer £70m).
Greed
Deloitte was also negligent in its failure to discover the self-dealing, and, if it did know of the dealing, it was negligent in not disclosing the family's actions to Adelphia's audit committee. Deloitte agreed to pay $50 million (including a $25 million fine).
In a report in the Financial Times says "Deloitte's Italian office, in particular, failed to apply basic accounting principles and verify "irregular" and "suspect" accounting entries." Deloitte are now in court over this.
A secretive agreement was signed between the government of Liberia and the auditing firm Deloitte drew criticism international organisations as it gave the corrupt Liberian government the veil of respectability. It did little to easy the corruption and ex-Liberian President Gyude Bryant has since been charged with embezzlement.
Royal Bank of Scotland
AKA 'The Oil Bank'
Oil
As RBS proudly points out its strong investment in the oil industry; what ever the humanitarian cost. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline goes through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey which suffer high levels of economic hardship and poverty. An estimated 20,000 families in Turkey have lost their land to the BTC pipeline route. While in theory they will be compensated for their land, in practice they are only paid for a narrow corridor containing the pipe itself, even though a much wider area would be damaged or destroyed by construction activities. Also if there are not official title deeds then the land owner get nothing. RBS also funds Petrofac, finances Abbot Group Plc in there offshore drilling and at least 98 civilian airlines!
Greed
RBS aided and abetted Enron officers in breaching their fiduciary duties and has been fined £750,000 in 2002 for breaches of money laundering regulations.
HSBC
Greed
Equatorial Guinea has got a sad record of disease, brutality and corruption, and fewer inhabitants than Sheffield. This mini country located under the armpit of the West African coast has immense quantities of oil; it is currently exporting £2.5bn a year. The IMF reported bluntly in May: "Unfortunately, this wealth has not yet led to measurable improvements in living conditions." Why? The oil revenues stay in the US and $34m was transferred to two unknown entities, Kalunga and Apexside. HSBC was involved in aiding the Apexside transactions, and some of the money went through accounts it operated in the fiscal "black holes" of both Luxembourg and Cyprus. HSBC's Luxembourg operation advertises itself as a private banking service "to high-net worth individuals and their families". The committee said: "The position taken by ... HSBC ... presents a significant obstacle to US anti money-laundering efforts."
Rain forests
Last year when the New York Times pointed out that the destruction of the Amazon had risen by two-fifths. The largest private soy producer Blairo Maggi responded: “To me, a 40 percent increase in deforestation doesn’t mean anything at all, and I don’t feel the slightest guilt over what we are doing here. We are talking about an area larger than Europe that has barely been touched, so there is nothing at all to get worried about.” Who helped finance the attitude that increased deforestation was nothing to worry about? HSBC.
Supermarkets
Supermarkets wield immense power over the way we grow, buy and eat our food. They are shaping our environment, our health and the way we interact socially. These changes have gone unchallenged because consumers have been sucked into superstore lifestyles, persuaded that the opportunity to select from six different brands of cut-price oven chips at three in the morning represents choice and value.
In 1960, small independent retailers had a 60% share of the food retail market. By 2000, their share was reduced to 6% while the large multi-national retailers' share increased to 88% quoted in a Corporate Watch report. The food industry is not short of friends in high places to make sure that its voice is heard more clearly than those of the people it has put out of business.
These are some of the many issues with monopoly supermarkets, the fundamental one being the concentration of power into the hands of a few powerful companies (Tesco, Marks & Spencers, Sainsbury's, ASDA and Morrisons) who can then dictate the terms and conditions to millions of small farmers and other small suppliers. This imbalance has been created over the last 30 years through food and agriculture policies and global trade agreements which promote trade liberalisation and the globalisation of the food economy. As farmers and plantation owners are squeezed to produce more and more at ever decreasing margins, its no wonder that farm workers, animals and the environment are exploited. It is also no wonder that we are suffering from a global farming crisis.
Other issues include: food miles; 'ghost towns' --- so-called because shopping has been moved to the outskirts of towns and cities; dependence on car use to get food and other essential items; waste --- it is estimated that 30-40% of all food produced is wasted; health; local economy and community; consumerism --- leading to unnecessary items being bought, debt/unhappiness and more waste (environmental degradation); pesticide use; dis-empowering people; workers exploitation; dictating development to 'developing' countries:
as somebody said...'...they've got nowhere else to go. Their domestic markets are saturated, so they are looking for countries with large populations, high population growth, per capita GDP edging toward consumer levels, high income growth, and low supermarket presence. Countries with all five of these characteristics are a good bet, and companies rush to get there before everyone else.'
Supermarkets are not sustainable and may succeed in providing low prices, but fail to provide healthy food, healthy communities, healthy small businesses and a healthy countryside.
John Papworth, priest, makes his controversial views known in 1997:
"Supermarkets are a dagger in the guts of civilisation…Shoplifting is a badly needed re-allocation of resources. I don't regard it as stealing."
For a start to your research look up www.corporatewatch.something
Ethical Careers
The following websites help to provide information about careers and employers of interest to graduates who are concerned about the ethical, social and environmental responsibility of graduate recruiters.
- Ethical Careers Service http://peopleandplanet.org/ethicalcareers - listings of jobs, internships and events. e.g. biodiversity, campaigns and recycling jobs and environmental records of companies http://psicologiasocial.uab.es/fic/es/book/2007/10/18
- Ethical Jobs www.ethical-jobs.co.uk massive range of opportunity from solar engineering to sustainable development and care work. NOT an agency.
- Governance Jobs GovernanceJobs.com Corporate Governance (CG) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) related jobs.
- Ethical Junction www.ethical-junction.org promotes socially responsible organisations, fair trade and ethical issues. http://www.usdla-nc.org/node/1234
- The New Academy of Business www.new-academy.ac.uk independent business school, whose purpose is "to help change the way business works through education, learning and action" http://www.ovmall.com/content/azithromicyn-20
- Forum for the Future www.forumforthefuture.org.uk Educational charity promoting sustainable development
- The Ethical Careers Guide www.ethicalcareers.org "Guide to careers with a conscience". A print directory is available for reference in the Careers Information Room.
- UK Social Investment Forum www.uksif.org lists organisations supporting socially responsible investment http://www.tsv-ringheim.com/node/1124/edit
- Center for Alternative Technology www.cat.org.uk publishes The Sustainable Careers Handbook (available from the Careers Service reception Desk)
- The Corporate Responsibility Group www.crguk.org has a useful links section on their website
- Scientists for Global Responsibility www.sgr.org.uk produce briefings on issues including climate change and sustainable development and a contacts list of ethical employers and training http://vnsalvation.org/node/1124
Alternative work styles
(Unconventional work...)
The following resources may be helpful for students who, through choice or through force of circumstances, are unwilling or unable to follow a "conventional" working pattern, who are seeking a satisfactory work-life balance or who simply want to avoid the rat-race.
Flexible Working
- Working Families www.workingfamilies.org.uk advice and information on part-time work, job-sharing, flexible working hours, working from home
- Prospects Web Alternative Work Styles www.prospects.ac.uk/links/Flexiblework
- Government guidelines and case studies on flexible working www.dti.gov.uk/er/flexible.htm
- Flexibility www.flexibility.co.uk - on-line resources including more case studies
- Employers for Work- Life Balance www.employersforwork-lifebalance.org.uk
- The Work-Life Balance Center www.worklifebalancecentre.org http://www.talkneedlepoint.com/content/skecehzka
Working For Yourself
- For advice on self-employment see www.kent.ac.uk/careers/selfemployment.htm http://www.respectmyright.com/node/1224
- Other Ways to Avoid the Rat-Race
- Diggers and Dreamers - guide to communal living in Britain www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk
- Information on Co-operatives www.icof.co.uk/home.htm
- Self-Sufficiency advice www.go-self-sufficient.com
- Downsizer www.downsizer.net "for a sustainable and ethical future"
Apprentice Master Alliance www.apprentice.org.uk Links apprentices with masters - those who have a skill to teach, ranging from arts and crafts to publishing and museum work.
Leeds Ethical Careers Fair -- coming soon!
Also we are planning to hold workshops to facilitate your decision-making on careers (especially ethical ones..) in the future. Come down to the Green Action co-op in the Union to find out more about this.
We hope this has been useful to you, and once you have read all you want to read, please recycle it, or better still pass it on!