Sierra Club sells out!! It seems licensing fees are more important than the club's mission...
The Clorox debacle continues | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
The Sierra Club's national board voted on March 25 to remove the leaders of the Club's 35,000-member Florida chapter, and to suspend the chapter for four years. It was the first time in the Club's 116-year history that such action has been taken against a state chapter.
The leadership of the Florida chapter had been highly critical of the national board's decision in mid-December 2007 to allow The Clorox Company to use the Sierra Club's name and logo to market a new line of non-chlorinated cleaning products called "Green Works." In return, Clorox Company will pay Sierra Club an undisclosed fee, based partly on product sales. The Clorox Company logo will appear on the products as well. A 2004 report [PDF] by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund named The Clorox Company as one of the nation's most chemically dangerous.
The Clorox deal has angered and embittered Club members all across the country, not just in Florida. Since the deal was announced in January, the Club's national leadership has deflected many requests by Club members to see the text of the legal agreement signed with Clorox. Johanna O'Kelley, the Club's director of Licensing & Cause-Related Marketing, will say only that the amount of money involved is "substantial." Carl Pope, the Club's executive director, has said that money was not the driving factor behind the deal: "Our focus was on consumers who otherwise would not migrate to a safer product because they wouldn't be sure it wasn't green scamming," Mr. Pope has written. The idea is that the Clorox logo will convince people the products will work, and the Sierra Club logo will convince people the products are environmentally preferable.
Third parties are already benefiting from the deal. John Ulrich, who heads the Chemical Industry Council of California, claims broadly that "the chemical industry is moving toward developing and marketing safer, more eco-friendly products, pointing to Oakland-based Clorox Co.'s new line of 'green' cleaning products that have been endorsed by the Sierra Club," according to a recent news report. As he spoke, Mr. Ulrich was using the Sierra Club/Clorox deal to try to deflect attention away from a new report [PDF] showing that the chemical industry sickens and kills thousands of Californians each year, costing the state an estimated $2.6 billion in medical expenses and lost wages.
With 2007 revenues of $4.8 billion, The Clorox Company is best-known for its namesake chlorine bleach. The company also manufactures and sells other cleaning products, including Pine-Sol, Clorox Clean-Up, Formula 409, Liquid Plumr, Armor All, plus STP auto-care products, Fresh Step and Scoop Away cat litter, Kingsford charcoal, Hidden Valley and K.C. Masterpiece salad dressings and sauces, Brita water- filtration systems, and Glad bags, wraps and containers. With 7,800 employees worldwide, the company manufactures products in more than two dozen countries and markets them in more than 100 countries.
Sierra Club removes leadership of its Florida chapter
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