Spotlight
The Changing Face of Environmental Campaigning: Greenpeace and Business
Gerd Leipold, International Executive Director, Greenpeace
Monday, April 6, 2009 | 05:30 PM
Burke Auditorium (3rd Floor) Kroon Hall, 195 Prospect St, New Haven
Dr. Gerd Leipold, aged 57, was appointed in June 2001. He has had a long association with Greenpeace, having worked for the organisation for in various capacities for over 20 years. In the 1980s he was Executive Director of Greenpeace Germany, before running the international disarmament campaign from 1987-92. In his role as Greenpeace's International Executive Director Mr. Leipold leads the global organisation, overseeing all its activities.
Gerd Leipold has a PhD in Oceanography and worked as a research scientist for the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg on numerical ocean circulation models as part of the institute's climate research and at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California.
About the talkClimate change, the most pressing global environmental threat, poses an unprecedented challenge to the world. Intricately linked with energy security and economic development, it has become a mainstream topic for politics, business, academia and civil society.
Environmental organizations have an inimitable opportunity now to push for the profound changes required, but they also risk being either neutralized by co-optation or marginalized if confrontational.
Greenpeace, the world's best known environmental organization and famous for its spectacular direct actions, has been an outspoken, confrontational critic of corporate and governmental failures and misbehavior.
As a fiercely independent organization that accepts no funding from governments, corporations or political parties, Greenpeace has increasingly engaged with the corporate sector, both confronting and cooperating, without compromising its independence and ecological vision.
In this talk, the International Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Dr. Gerd Leipold, describes the global strategy of Greenpeace and gives examples of Greenpeace work with companies such as Apple, Coca Cola, McDonald's and Unilever and how the power of the market can be harnessed for the good of the environment.