Corporations Worried by New "Precautionary Principle" Law in San Francisco

6/26/2003

This internet posting is from an ANTI-environmental PR specialist.

"To cope with this new reality, corporate PR folks need to intensify and broaden their efforts at the local level. This will be necessary in every village, town, and city across the U.S. and eventually around the world. Local PR, not global PR, is the PR challenge of the future. It will usurp crisis PR as the ultimate PR challenge."

---------------------------

Environmentalists win victory of unprecedented importance and magnitude:

PR changed globally and forever

© ePublic Relations Ltd 2003

Posted June 2003

Contact: rsirvine@epublicrelations.org

Environmental activists have won a victory that's so stunning and far-reaching that even they are amazed. It's a win that -- over time
-- will have an impact on PR across the United States, North America, and the entire world.

Regardless of the business you're in -- biotechnology, banking, transportation, chemical, nuclear, mining or agriculture -- you will feel its influence. It will stifle innovation, creativity and progress in your company or organization. And, it will change the way you do PR on a day-to-day basis.

On June 17, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted the precautionary principle as the basis for city and county policies. The precautionary principle is a notoriously vague and imprecise concept for which there are at least 23 definitions. One activist has said, "It (the precautionary principle) is a broad ethical principle. It can guide us all - workers and environmentalists - in a righteous fight against corporate greed."

It's little wonder that the activist newsletter Rachel's Environment & Health News describes "a city guided by the precautionary principle" as a "dream." Rachel's also said the San Francisco development was "a stunning and unprecedented breakthrough in the management of environmental matters in the U.S."

The precautionary principle made its major public debut in the 1992 United Nations Rio Declaration but has a history that's much longer. It has been discussed on this web site, its predecessor -- EnviroScan, a newsletter distributed by fax in the early and mid 1990s -- and in ePublic Relations presentations to PR and business groups.

Framework for future laws

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors stated: "...the City sees the Precautionary Principle approach as its policy framework to develop laws for a healthier and more just San Francisco."

It goes on to say:

"Where threats of serious or irreversible damage to people or nature exist, lack of full scientific certainty about cause and effect shall not be viewed as sufficient reason for the City to postpone measures to prevent the degradation of the environment or protect the health of its citizens. Any gaps in scientific data uncovered by the examination of alternatives will provide a guidepost for future research, but will not prevent protective action being taken by the City. As new scientific data become available, the City will review its decisions and make adjustments when warranted."

In this single paragraph, San Francisco discards accepted and effective scientific risk assessment programs. Instead, the mere suspicion that something may cause harm is sufficient to bring an activity to a halt. Furthermore, any gap in knowledge or information
-- not matter how small -- can be used to bring an activity to a halt. As a result, if opponents of a technology or residential development ask proponents "Have you thought of this? Have you considered that?" and the answer is "No," the technology or development can be stopped. It's simply impossible to think of -- let alone consider and evaluate -- all alternatives and their implications.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is asking for the impossible when it states:

" An obligation exists to examine a full (emphasis added) range of alternatives and select the alternative with the least potential impact on human health and the environment including the alternative of doing nothing."

There's no leeway here! The burden on business is great and costly.

San Francisco adoption of the precautionary principle also includes a high degree of public participation with which most corporate and organizational PR folks are unfamiliar.

The board of supervisors says:

" The alternatives assessment is also a public process because, locally or internationally, the public bears the ecological and health consequences of environmental decisions. A government's course of action is necessarily enriched by broadly based public participation when a full range of alternatives is considered based on input from diverse individuals and groups. The public should be able to determine the range of alternatives examined and suggest specific reasonable alternatives, as well as their short- and long-term benefits and drawbacks."

This opens the doors to international activists in addition to the homegrown variety to become in San Francisco's public participation process. In addition, uninformed, malevolent and self-serving activists individuals and groups now have a role in setting the range of alternatives to be considered in the San Francisco decision-making process.

Business must participate

Participation in the public process will require business to take part in decision-making from every ad hoc committee to the mayor's office. Failure to do so, will mean business forfeits the right to partake in the final decision and to criticize the final decision. If business isn't there from day one and throughout the process it can't complain that it didn't have the opportunity to make its case.

To cope with this new reality, corporate PR folks need to intensify and broaden their efforts at the local level. This will be necessary in every village, town, and city across the U.S. and eventually around the world. Local PR, not global PR, is the PR challenge of the future. It will usurp crisis PR as the ultimate PR challenge.

The history of the San Francisco precautionary approach and the documentation adopted by the city board of supervisors has been circulated around the world. Just as nuclear-free, GE-free, pesticide-free and smoking-free communities have sprung up around the world, it's only a matter of time before precautionary-principle communities surface everywhere. The model is in place and available. It only needs to be adapted for use in other communities.

The San Francisco situation illustrates one of the great differences between corporate and activist PR. Corporate PR folks are concerned about the business, the industry, the brand, the next news cycle and media relations. Activist PR folks are concerned about the environment in which business, industry, the brand, the news cycle and media relations are conducted. Corporate PR folks manage issues while activist PR folks manage the context in which issues occur. Put another way, activist PR folks deal with values and visions, corporate PR folks deal with things.

The San Francisco board of supervisors talks a great deal about values and visions in the information explaining its adoption of the precautionary principle. For your information and thoughtful consideration the board of supervisors' policy follows.

Read it carefully. Its implications are much broader than described here. PR as you know it has changed forever.

--