After five years of railing on the world's largest corporate destroyer of forests, the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) struck a deal with Mitsubishi Motor Sales America (MMSA) and Mitsubishi Electric America (MEA) this February, attempting to turn Mitsubishi green. The agreement, although a long way from perfect, was only made with these two companies, and the boycott continues against the 160 other companies of the gigantic, interlocking Mitsubishi keiretsu (corporate family).
News of the agreement sent shock waves of confusion, elation and frustration through the environmental movement. After the agreement was signed, MEA ran an ad in the New York Times with a picture of the Earth which boldly announced, "Before, Rainforest Action Network & Mitsubishi Electric America Were Barely On The Same Planet. Now, They're On The Same Page." In fine print at the bottom of the ad, it generally described the agreement in a lot of environmental rhetoric. The RAN and MEA logos were printed side by side. There was no mention that the boycott continued on all the other Mitsubishi companies.
The bottom line is that Mitsubishi Corporation continues to oversee logging, mining and cultural genocide. The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and its subsidiary Union Bank of California finance it, while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries supplies the weapons for the crimes. These three entities control most of the other companies in the keiretsu which manufactures and invests in everything from nuclear energy to beer. All of the companies conduct business in a way that would violate most US anti-trust laws. They share the logo, rotate executives, have interlocking boards of directors, maintain exclusive contracts with each other and aggressively finance one anothers projects.
In the agreement with RAN, the three major programs that MMSA and MEA promised to implement are as follows:
To understand the agreement, one needs to realize the dramatic power shift that was occurring among key players at the time the deal was finally struck (after three years of heavy negotiations). The three kingpins of the agreement - Tachi Kiuchi, acting president of MEA, Dick Recchia, CEO of MMSA and Randy Hayes, executive director of RAN - were all retiring. They wanted to close the deal before they left. It was unclear if RAN could wrest any other concessions from MMSA and MEA than those already in the agreement by holding out longer. But were these promises worth settling over?
The entire agreement is not legally binding; it is only a good faith accord. What's more, the details of how MMSA and MEA will implement the agreement are too general. For instance, the dollar amount to be awarded to the Forest Community Support Program has not been set. The money is supposed to come from a fee tacked onto the price of only one line of MMSA's cars. This fee will approximate the cost of mitigating the environmental and social impacts of that car over its lifetime. But MMSA says that it wants consumers to pay the mitigation cost through a voluntary fee imbedded in the price of its cars, which they will promote as benefiting forest communities.
The most difficult obstacle for the campaign to overcome will be how to articulate the boycott itself, especially after publicity like the New York Times ad. At best, that ad certainly confused the people who actually knew something about the campaign. At worst, it led a lot of people to believe that the boycott is over and the forests are saved. So, what is the campaign rally cry now, "Boycott Mitsubishi! But not Mitsubishi Motor Sales America and Mitsubishi Electric America!"?
The campaign is now targeting Mitsubishi Corporation, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Union Bank of California, Mitsubishi International and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. This limits direct action to the big cities where these entities operate from. There are still consumer products to target, like Nikon cameras and Kirin Beer, but Mitsubishi's connection to these products is obscure. Without prominent consumer products branded with Mitsubishi's logo, the campaign lacks a clear message.
Only time will tell if the agreement, with all its ambiguities, will challenge other Mitsubishi companies and extractive industries to cease tearing down forests and exterminating indigenous cultures. For now, it remains unclear whether or not MMSA and MEA will even fulfill the promises of the agreement. In the words of RAN's campaigners, "We're no fools. We know that this agreement is not worth its weight in the agricultural residue that it's printed on if MMSA and MEA do not come through on their obligations." Send your questions and concerns to RAN at 221 Pine Street, San Francisco, CA 94109; (415) 398-4404; fax 398-2732.