Business-Managed Democracy - Sponsored Classroom Materials

Business-Managed Education

Environment and Energy

During the 1970s and 80s as the modern environmental movement grew and people became more aware of environmental degradation, many companies and trade associations, particularly those involved in mining, oil, forestry and chemical manufacture turned to school materials to get their message into schools.

Forestry Fossil Fuels Plastics Chemicals

CarbonKids
Carbon Kids is a climate change program for Australian schools funded by Bayer and Shell

For example, the American Nuclear Society produced a kit which told children about the beneficial uses of nuclear technology and attempted to describe the problem of waste disposal in harmless terms: “Anything we produce results in some ‘leftovers’ that are either recycled or disposed of—whether we’re making electricity from coal or nuclear, or making scrambled eggs!”

Industry sponsored school materials seek to:

promote the benefits of their products.
downplay or omit mention of their environmental impacts.
stress how environmentally responsible an industry or company is.
point to new technologies that are being developed and implemented to avoid, minimise or rectify any environmental impacts.
present pollutants and chemical inputs as natural.
omit discussion of or dismiss alternatives to an industry’s products.
stress what individual students and their families can do to help the environment rather than what industry should do.

Procter and Gamble

Procter and Gamble produces environmental education materials for school children. One of its educational packages Decision Earth was distributed to almost 75,000 schools in the US. The aim of this package was “to raise student awareness of the complex consumer product choices they face and help them make informed choices based on the product’s ability to meet their needs as consumers.”

The package contained some highly controversial claims on waste disposal, mining and forestry issues. For example, Procter and Gamble argued in their package that disposable diapers are no worse for the environment than cloth diapers. The company just happens to be the world’s largest manufacturer of disposable nappies although this wasn’t mentioned in the package. The package described garbage-fuelled incineration processes where energy is recovered, as “thermal recycling” and without mentioning the toxic ash or emissions that result.

Decision Earth was subject to various complaints and is no longer distributed in the US.

Fracking Comes to School

$fracking diagram$ As part of a comprehensive PR effort to portray fracking, a method of fracturing underground rock formations to release gases for energy, as environmentally friendly, the fracking industry has been sending 'experts' into Australian schools. Fracking is opposed by some 160 community groups around Australia and there is a fracking moritorium in Victoria.

Fracking company, Buru Energy, "also offers sponsorship for star performers in schools and runs colouring competitions for kids' drawings to be put in the company's corporate calendar".

Contributers' Updates and Examples

If you have any examples or updates you would like to contribute please email them to me and I will add them here. Please give references for where you sourced the information.