Globalisation:Green Alliance

Marie-Louise Apostolescu Rebecca Hogg Barry Strain

Videos

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History ^[1]

Green Alliance was created in 1979 and Mr Maurice Ash, its then chairman, said: “We’re a bunch of optimists. We’re not the doomsters. We believe in the possibilities of the future...”. At the beginning it was a small group of people but very soon they started lobbying on new issues. In effect, GA has achieved many “firsts” as they say in their 25th anniversary report ^[2]

In 1983 Green Alliance lobbied for the Environmental Impact Assessment which was adopted in the 1990s. In 1984, they made political parties to present their first environmental policy statements. Three years later, GA raised for the first time the issue of Genetically Modified organisms (GM). In the same period, they combined businesses’ with environmental groups’ agendas. In the 1990s they gathered Eastern and Western European NGOs and lobbied for the first White Paper on environment in UK. Then, in 1992 the government promised GA to ratify the Rio Convention on Biodiversity. Two years later they lobbied for a more powerful Environment Agency in the UK. Furthermore, they hosted Tony Blair’s first “green speech” in 1995 then in 2000 as PM. In 1997 GA launched Green Globe Task Force as an independent group focusing on international environment issues.

People

Green Alliance gathers three types of members ^[3]. It has a permanent staff (director, paymaster, etc.) that is in charge with administrative and communication tasks. Twelve trustees meet quarterly to supervise the programmes and eight associates (professors and consultants in specific areas) who work on an ad-hoc basis but have strong links with GA.

For more details, see following page: Globalisation:Green Alliance: Staff

GA and Neo-liberalism

The creation of Green Alliance has a lot to do with neo-liberalism. Indeed, it was created in 1979 – the year when Margaret Thatcher came into power at the Whitehall. Her policy encouraged the emergence of quangos and GA is one of those numerous groups. It is difficult to say if GA is really impartial in its lobbying activities. Many of them were focusing on protecting the environment and have usually succeeded. Some of its partners started to go green (especially supermarkets) but the problem comes from funders, like BP for instance, who do not seem ready for a greener development.

Moreover, GA describes itself as independent but it is funded by a large range of corporations that actually should be advised by GA itself. The example of BP is again very interesting and it is developed in the “Funding and Connections” sub-page. Their definition of independence is thus questionable and occurs several times in GA's activities. In the report called “Firetail review of GA” ^[4] the think tank presents it as an independent review of its activity in the past two years. However, the report was commissioned by GA itself.

Another aspect of GA is its great influence at the Whitehall and in Westminster. The relationship that the think tank has created with the official institutions is a very close and a very influencing one. In this era of globalisation where governments are more and more advised by quangos, GA is not an exception. In their reports it can be read exactly what achievements they have succeeded.