Greenpeace Releases New… Blah, Blah, Blah

Reaching into its bag of retread tricks, Greenpeace— for the hundred millionth time — is releasing a “Tuna Retailer Scorecard” that no consumers will pay attention to. The thinly veiled fundraising solicitation that went out today pithily titled, “Message from Greenpeace” contains just two links. One to a list of ranked retailers and the second to a page titled, “Donate to Greenpeace USA For a Better Future!” Notice the exclamation point; that means it’s important.

This time the group has ginned up a reworked “Tuna Retailer Scorecard” that’s based on human rights violations and environmental impact, ultimately, homogenizing and marginalizing two actually important issues into one cash grab.

But, spoiler alert, retailers and consumers alike don’t need to even read it to know what it says—all 16 retailers except one (which earned a “D”) got an “F.” That’s right, no one is doing enough for human rights or the environment except Greenpeace.

Here’s how it works; Greenpeace will get a few donations here and there, then it will reach out to its big institutional donors and say the new score card is creating fundamental change. Next, it will generate another score card that shows marginal improvement, and claim credit for said “progress.” Finally, in classic Greenpeace style, it will then rinse and repeat for a few more cycles and eventually go away after accomplishing essentially nothing but…fundraising.

An endless loop of nothing new; lather, rinse, repeat.