April 24, 2007
David J. O’Reilly
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Chevron Corp.
6001 Bollinger Canyon Rd.
San Ramon, CA 94583
Dear Mr. O’Reilly:
On the eve of your company’s annual shareholder meeting, I am extending an invitation for your company to join the growing family of American corporations that align their business interests with strong environmental and social principles. Your company is currently mired in controversies from Ecuador to Nigeria and beyond. As the global movement for environmental and social justice strengthens and becomes increasingly connected through the internet, scrutiny and criticism of Chevron’s shortcomings will only increase. Public relations and litigation won’t solve this problem. Clearly, a new strategy is needed.
According to “The Chevron Way,” your company claims to “respect the law, support universal human rights, protect the environment, and benefit the communities” in which Chevron operates. Why are these principles not applied in Ecuador? Your company has not met its obligations to clean up a poisonous legacy in Ecuador, where an area covering more than 3,000 square miles was poisoned with waste and oil spills over a period of several decades. Contamination from this toxic dumping continues to poison the environment in Ecuador and the thousands of people who live there. Continuing to ignore this problem will severely detriment your brand as the public learns more about Chevron’s actions globally.
Your company can do better. My organization has worked with dozens of companies – including Home Depot, Kinko’s, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America – helping each of them to establish strong policies that go beyond public relations and provide substantive solutions to pressing environmental and human rights challenges. We know that Chevron has the potential to be a good neighbor, but it will lose its social license to operate around the world if it continues to ignore the concerns of local communities. Chevron can either continue to deny its responsibility in Ecuador and receive increased negative publicity and shareholder and consumer pressure, or it can clean up the toxic waste in Ecuador, compensate the affected communities, and take credit for raising the bar on corporate behavior abroad.
Rainforest Action Network is joining Amazon Watch in the campaign to Clean Up Ecuador. Our sincere hope is that Chevron will accept its responsibility for cleaning up its mess in Ecuador. We will continue to raise this issue with your company’s shareholders, employees, financiers and customers until you do.
Please contact me at the number below to discuss this further.
Sincerely,
Michael Brune
Executive Director
