No Joke: Chevron Releases A New “Corporate Responsibility Report”

By Rainforest Action Network
CVX AGM 2010 protest
Protesters from communities around the world impacted by Chevron's business operations at the company's 2010 shareholder meeting in Houston.

No, this is not the latest brilliant satirical piece written by the folks over at The Onion. Chevron really has just released a “Corporate Responsibility Report” to highlight “companywide [sic] performance including safety, environmental stewardship, social investments and human rights.”

Having read that, you’re probably thinking, “Come on, Mike, give us a break. This has to be a joke.” And in a way, I agree: It kind of is a joke. A really, really sick joke.

I suspect “corporate responsibility” is more of a game to Chevron than a joke, however. It’s a PR game the company plays to try and convince us that its business operations aren’t having a dire impact on communities around the world. Anyone who regularly reads this blog or ChevronToxico.org knows all too well the destruction and misery that Chevron leaves in its wake. To really appreciate the full scale of the company’s human rights and environmental abuses around the world, check out the True Cost of Chevron site, as well.

Then let the company know what you think of its “Corporate Responsibility Report” on this Chevron Facebook post. You’ll have to “Like” the company to comment, but don’t worry, you can unlike them right away.

You really have to marvel at the depths of Chevron’s hypocrisy — and you certainly would not be alone if you thought this report seemed too bitterly ironic to be real. The report claims: “Through ongoing stakeholder engagement, Chevron is promoting respect for global human rights.” But of course there is no mention of the guilty verdict or the $9.5 billion judgment Chevron refuses to comply with to clean up the Ecuadorean Amazon. While the company plays its PR games, thousands of Ecuadoreans don’t have clean water to drink thanks to Chevron’s oil pollution. Some 1,400 Ecuadoreans have died already and as many as 10,000 more are at risk of cancer and other life-threatening diseases in the coming decades if the company continues to refuse to clean up its mess.

Thanks for the cancer
Click image to read more about the impacts of Chevron's dirty business operations on communities around the world.

Far from engaging with them as stakeholders, Chevron has actually accused the victims of its pollution in Ecuador of being involved in a conspiracy to extort money from the company. In fact, Chevron has enlisted an entire squad of Human Rights Hitmen to deny basic human rights to the 30,000 Ecuadoreans who have been living with the company’s deliberate contamination of the Amazon rainforest for several decades now.

So post your thoughts on Chevron’s Facebook page, and if you’re in the Bay Area help us call for some real responsibility — not just self-congratulatory and thoroughly bogus reports — by attending our protest outside of Chevron HQ during the company’s annual shareholder meeting.