Smart Alliance: How a Global Corporation and Environmental Activists Transformed a Tarnished Brand (Yale Agrarian Studies (YUP))

Smart Alliance: How a Global Corporation and Environmental Activists Transformed a Tarnished Brand (Yale Agrarian Studies (YUP))

by J Gary Taylor (Author)

Synopsis

Large and wealthy global companies too often fail to acknowledge environmental responsibility or workers' rights. This book tells the dramatic story of one company-Chiquita Brands International-that decided to change the negative paradigm. Formerly the notorious United Fruit Company, a paternalistic organization that gave the name Banana Republic to tropical countries in Central America, Chiquita defied all expectations in the mid-1990s by forming an innovative pact with the Rainforest Alliance that transformed not only the corporation itself but also an important segment of the banana industry. Gary Taylor and Patricia Scharlin reveal the inside story of how corporate executives, banana workers, local leaders, and conservation advocates learned to work together and trust one another. Over the objections of skeptical critics, Chiquita and the Rainforest Alliance established a Better Banana seal of approval to certify genuine efforts to improve soil and water quality, ensure rainforest conservation, and enhance worker health and safety. This chronicle of their collaboration, told objectively and with extensive documentation, presents a promising new model of cooperative behavior--a model that shows how multinational companies can become motivated to solve critical global problems.

$57.36

Quantity

2 in stock

More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 304
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 23 Apr 2004

ISBN 10: 030010233X
ISBN 13: 9780300102338

Media Reviews
One of the fairest treatments of environmental and trade issues yet written. Since the Rio conference (1992), we have been challenged to see the synergies between economics and environmental protection, and this study is among the best. Jonathan Plaut, Science, Technology, and Society Program, The Pennsylvania State University, and former chair, NAFTA CECF
Author Bio
J. Gary Taylor is president and Patricia J. Scharlin is vice president of The Environment Group, New York City.