by Paul K. Driessen
Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services
July 2003

WASHINGTON, DC, July 2003 ¾ For two years, BP’s marketing spin-meisters concocted ads proclaiming that the world’s second biggest hydrocarbon producer had gone “Beyond Petroleum.”

One proudly announced: “Solar, natural gas, hydrogen, wind. And oh yes, oil. It’s a start.” Another hoped people wouldn’t gag on the line, “We believe in alternative energy. Like solar cappuccino.”

Many people were surprised that a huge oil company was so committed to alternative energy technologies. They needn’t have been. Yes, BP nee British Petroleum spent some $200 million on its “Great Beyondo” image enhancement campaign. But that’s the same amount it spent over a six-year period on the renewable energy technologies that were the centerpiece for its slick marketing ploy. It’s also a measly 0.2 percent of the $91 billion it spent to buy Arco and Amoco back in the 1990s.

Things really got interesting after BP had milked the renewable energy hype for all it was worth. announced it was spending $6.75 billion for a 50 percent controlling interest in rich Russian oil prospects and another $20 billion over the next five years exploring these and other new fields.

BP was going Back to Petroleum and hopefully Bigger Profits after it was forced to lower its oil and gas production estimates three times in 2002; the company’s return on capital sank below that of archrivals ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch/Shell; and investors expressed their displeasure by dumping BP stock.

Not long afterward, CEO Lord John Browne confessed to executives attending the 2003 World Gas Conference that the world won’t really be heading to an alternative energy future for at least 20 more years. Until then, “hydrocarbons will not just remain the most important source of energy they will actually become more important.”

In fact, continued Browne, all the renewable energy produced across the entire planet, excluding hydroelectric power, “would barely meet” Tokyo’s needs. BP’s own cumulative global wind and solar output, he might have added, is barely enough toIdaho. And a single new 555-megawatt gas-fired generating plant in California produces more electricity in a year than do all the state’s 13,000 wind turbines.

Then what’s with all this “greenwashing” this “Beyond Petroleum” disinformation that BP is using to promote an environmentally responsible public image?

To a large degree, it reflects the company’s deep involvement in a “sustainable development” and “corporate social responsibility” movement that’s all the rage among ideological environmentalists, UN and European Union bureaucrats, and corporations that hope to reap big bucks from new regulations governing the use of energy, resources and just about everything else.

Truly moral and responsible policies would focus on sustaining people’s lives, and giving them hope for a better future.

Perhaps BP’s next campaign will go “Beyond Propaganda,” challenge the radicals’ callous attitudes, and emphasize people instead of profits.