Greens Infiltrate Boardrooms To Urge Corporate Surrender.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(BRAIN TRUST)

Byline: KERRI HOUSTON

The corporate perception of the anti-globalization movement is of unkempt, youthful demonstrators taking to the streets to disrupt every gathering of international commerce. They are seen as naughty children with little real influence over the "suits" running multinational corporations.

But it's not street mobs posing a major danger to business; instead, it is the roosters in the henhouse of economic prosperity -- anti-capitalists in pinstripes.

The anti-globalization crowd is making major inroads into corporate business practices by marching right through the front door. Radical greens in business suits are now employed at some of the largest public relations firms in the world -- firms that counsel multinational corporations on how to deal with environmentalists.

Under the guise of "corporate communications counseling," radical activists employed at two of the world's foremost PR firms are offering "capitulation counseling" -- selling out by shutting up.

In December 2000, one worldwide PR firm launched its Non-Governmental Organization Practice Group and hired Jonathan Wood-cliff to manage it. Woodcliff used to be Greenpeace International's director of communications.

Hiding Behind Rhetoric