Church investors lost in RTZ's morass

by ALBERT BEALE

<*> The recent revelations about massacres in West Papua by mine developers (see Peter Jones' article, above) have emerged just as campaigners are gearing up for the annual company meeting of mining multinational RTZ, which is implicated in the report.

It comes as no surprise at all that the infamous British-based company is actively investing in the Freeport mine despite these stories. So West Papua becomes yet one more part of the world where RTZ earns its profits at the expense of local inhabitants and their ecosystem--and yet one more area to add to the global catalogue of misery about which dissident shareholders will be protesting at the 10 May company meeting.

Since attacks on RTZ have--justifiably--become a high-point of the corporate critics' calendar in Britain, the company now has a policy of "getting its retaliation in first". The latest edition of its glossy corporate propaganda magazine includes several pages on "Investment and the Moral Maze": this is mainly devoted to bragging that the Church Commissioners (responsible for investing more than £1,000 million of the Church of England's resources) have invested in RTZ again after a gap of almost 20 years.

According to Antony Hardy who runs the Church Commissioners' investment department, "It is difficult with a large fund to get a balanced portfolio if you apply ethical guidelines too strictly." But he follows this admission by saying "I believe from our research that [RTZ] is the best example in the UK of a company that cares about the consequences of its business development, that cares about the environment in which it has operations, and that cares about the people with whom it is involved."

This claim raises the obvious question of which "research" led the Church Commissioners to this unexpected conclusion. Which of the bodies specialising in researching corporate ethics had Hardy drawn on? There are several impeccable sources to go to for such information, such as the Ethical Investment Research Service (EIRIS) and the Ecumenical Commission for Corporate Responsibility (ECCR) -- not to mention the RTZ specialists, PARTiZANS.

In fact, none of these source had been used at all. Most of the "research" consisted of Antony Hardy's dealings directly with RTZ. He explained to PN that, as someone who had access to the highest levels in companies like RTZ, he was "reassured" by them, and was happy to base his judgement on what RTZ told him.

He certainly had little sympathy with people who saw RTZ as inherently problematic. As he pointed out, "If we all lived in caves and wore grass skirts, we wouldn't need companies like RTZ-- but I live in the real world." No doubt the inhabitants of West Papua will be interested to hear that.