Corporate Watch's Greatest Hits is a sampling of our best efforts over the past 10 years. Read, enjoy, order copies that we still have in print (marked by a *) from our online shop
DBFO (Destroy! Burn! Fell! Obliterate!) (1995)
The first stirrings of Corporate Watch and the only publication of Corporate Watch 1.0. Written almost
single handedly, the DBFO booklet uncovered the companies, lobby groups and government departments behind the Design Build Finance Operate road schemes of the mid 1990s. Issue One of Corporate Watch Magazine (1996)
Issue One, published in September 1996, marked the point when
the Corporate Watch project, after more than a year's break, began to consolidate and became more than a one off publication, and a much talked about 'good idea'. Corporate Watch 2.0 emerged as a highly organized plan to overthrow corporate tyranny with an unfunded, photocopied and hand
stapled magazine produced in people's bedrooms and from a desk
in the corner of someone else's office. 2 libel threats, 3 offices, 3 websites, 10 years, 12 magazines, over 20 Corporate Watchers, over 30 briefings, 34 newsletters later, we are still here. GM Crops campaign (1996-2004)
From grassroots resistance to GM crops right through to Bayer CropScience eventually abandoning their plans to grow GM crops in the UK, Corporate Watch provided information and analysis on the GM industry to campaigners and activists. Corporate Watch's work on GM crops included magazine and newsletter articles, over 20 briefings and corporate profiles, a website listing the locations of all the GM test sites and corporate infrastructure in the UK, and a family tree poster of the biotech industry. Corporate Watcher's Address Book (1997)
Pulling the tiger's tail to see what would happen, the Corporate Watcher's Address Book attempted to break down the all powerful, monolithic entity of the corporation by saying 'The Earth is not dying, it is being killed' and here are the names and addresses of the directors of some of the companies that are doing it. Apparently it upset the Institute of Directors somewhat. The Corporate Watch DIY Guide (1997 and updated in 2002)*
Demystifying what Corporate Watch does, and trying to stem the endless stream of phone calls asking for information on this company or that. The DIY guide was an accessible guide to anti-corporate research showing that digging the dirt on corporations isn't a mysterious dark art, but can be as simple
as flicking through your local Yellow Pages. The guide included tips on how to structure research, not get lost in libraries or sidetracked on the internet and why always noting down your references is important. Squaring Up to the Square Mile (1999)
An activist's guide book and map to the City of London and how the finance sector works. A collaboration with London Reclaim the Streets in the build up to the J18 Carnival Against Capitalism. When on June 18th 1999 London's financial district was transformed into a carnival/riot for the day, interrupting trading and causing millions of pounds of damage and questioning the divine right of capital to run the world, Corporate Watch was fingered as one of the event's organisers, leading to Corporate Watchers being hounded by the right wing press. Surburban Nuclear Scandal (1999 and continuing)
Corporate Watch has had a long-term involvement with the case of Reading resident Raymond Fox. Ray's life was wrecked when he was poisoned by chemical and radioactive pollution apparently emanating from the site of a former Shell petrochemicals depot at the end of his garden. In spite of a
wealth of documentary and scientific evidence for his claims there has been no serious investigation by the authorities. Corporate Watch has been almost alone in investigating the case and has encountered a deep reluctance to discuss the matter, both in the UK and in the European Commission whose supposed investigation has been little more than a charade. CW investigations unearthed details of Shell's intimate involvement with the nuclear industry in Britain and internationally from the 1950s to the early 1980s, and have presented a strong case that nuclear materials were present at the depot and may have been released in an accident in 1988, contaminating the area. We hope that Fox's current case in the High Court brings the whole murky story out into the public arena. What's Wrong With Supermarkets? (2002)*
Corporate Watch's best-seller, shifting over 7000 paper copies since 2002 and helping shape the debate about supermarkets. It exposes the immense power that supermarkets wield over the way we grow, buy and eat food, and how they shape our environment, health and even the way we interact socially. What's Wrong With Supermarkets helped campaigners get to grips with the reality of supermarket domination and why we must all start looking for alternatives. Degrees of Capture (2003)
Nearly 5 years in the writing but worth it in the end. Corporate Watch (in conjunction with Platform and the New Economics Foundation) uncovered the extent to which the oil industry's greasy tentacles have captured UK higher education. Degrees of Capture showed how by sponsoring institutes, donating to university departments, skewing research agendas and siphoning off the best minds, the oil industry uses academia for its own ends. Corporate Law and Structures (2004)*
Can corporations ever be a force for good in the world? 'Not as they are currently structured!' says Corporate Watch. A no-punches-pulled analysis of why company law is killing the planet by ensuring that corporations are money-making machines for shareholders at the expense of everything and everyone else. The report shows how the law provides company with protection originally intended for human beings whilst at the same time freeing them from the liabilities faced by individuals. It concludes that single minded and legally sheltered, corporations are able to prey on society and the planet while fostering an ideology that paints them as ethically-concerned citizens. Iraq Project (2006)*
Corporate Watch research on the front page of a national paper shocker! (A front page splash in The Independent, March 2006). Corporate Watch uncovered how, since 2003, UK corporations have helped carve up post-Saddam Iraq to the tune of over £1.1bn worth of contracts, from the US and UK reconstruction budgets, and from the Iraqi ministries. CSR (Companies Spouting Rubbish) (2006)*
Corporate Watch's latest heavy weight report on why, no matter how much we might love to believe otherwise, Corporate Social
Responsibility is a contradiction in terms. Whilst other organisations have critcised companies for not delivering on their CSR promises to be socially reposnsible, Corporate Watch's report pulls the whole mythology apart, exposing the way CSR helps companies to dupe the public; avoid regulation; disarm critics; bolster their reputations; cosy up to governments; gain access to international summits; exploit
developing country markets; and continue their war on the climate. Already one CSR worker has contacted us to say they quit their job after reading the report!
Corporate Watch Greatest Hits written by Olaf Bayer
The first stirrings of Corporate Watch and the only publication of Corporate Watch 1.0. Written almost
single handedly, the DBFO booklet uncovered the companies, lobby groups and government departments behind the Design Build Finance Operate road schemes of the mid 1990s. Issue One of Corporate Watch Magazine (1996)
Issue One, published in September 1996, marked the point when
the Corporate Watch project, after more than a year's break, began to consolidate and became more than a one off publication, and a much talked about 'good idea'. Corporate Watch 2.0 emerged as a highly organized plan to overthrow corporate tyranny with an unfunded, photocopied and hand
stapled magazine produced in people's bedrooms and from a desk
in the corner of someone else's office. 2 libel threats, 3 offices, 3 websites, 10 years, 12 magazines, over 20 Corporate Watchers, over 30 briefings, 34 newsletters later, we are still here. GM Crops campaign (1996-2004)
From grassroots resistance to GM crops right through to Bayer CropScience eventually abandoning their plans to grow GM crops in the UK, Corporate Watch provided information and analysis on the GM industry to campaigners and activists. Corporate Watch's work on GM crops included magazine and newsletter articles, over 20 briefings and corporate profiles, a website listing the locations of all the GM test sites and corporate infrastructure in the UK, and a family tree poster of the biotech industry. Corporate Watcher's Address Book (1997)
Pulling the tiger's tail to see what would happen, the Corporate Watcher's Address Book attempted to break down the all powerful, monolithic entity of the corporation by saying 'The Earth is not dying, it is being killed' and here are the names and addresses of the directors of some of the companies that are doing it. Apparently it upset the Institute of Directors somewhat. The Corporate Watch DIY Guide (1997 and updated in 2002)*
Demystifying what Corporate Watch does, and trying to stem the endless stream of phone calls asking for information on this company or that. The DIY guide was an accessible guide to anti-corporate research showing that digging the dirt on corporations isn't a mysterious dark art, but can be as simple
as flicking through your local Yellow Pages. The guide included tips on how to structure research, not get lost in libraries or sidetracked on the internet and why always noting down your references is important. Squaring Up to the Square Mile (1999)
An activist's guide book and map to the City of London and how the finance sector works. A collaboration with London Reclaim the Streets in the build up to the J18 Carnival Against Capitalism. When on June 18th 1999 London's financial district was transformed into a carnival/riot for the day, interrupting trading and causing millions of pounds of damage and questioning the divine right of capital to run the world, Corporate Watch was fingered as one of the event's organisers, leading to Corporate Watchers being hounded by the right wing press. Surburban Nuclear Scandal (1999 and continuing)
Corporate Watch has had a long-term involvement with the case of Reading resident Raymond Fox. Ray's life was wrecked when he was poisoned by chemical and radioactive pollution apparently emanating from the site of a former Shell petrochemicals depot at the end of his garden. In spite of a
wealth of documentary and scientific evidence for his claims there has been no serious investigation by the authorities. Corporate Watch has been almost alone in investigating the case and has encountered a deep reluctance to discuss the matter, both in the UK and in the European Commission whose supposed investigation has been little more than a charade. CW investigations unearthed details of Shell's intimate involvement with the nuclear industry in Britain and internationally from the 1950s to the early 1980s, and have presented a strong case that nuclear materials were present at the depot and may have been released in an accident in 1988, contaminating the area. We hope that Fox's current case in the High Court brings the whole murky story out into the public arena. What's Wrong With Supermarkets? (2002)*
Corporate Watch's best-seller, shifting over 7000 paper copies since 2002 and helping shape the debate about supermarkets. It exposes the immense power that supermarkets wield over the way we grow, buy and eat food, and how they shape our environment, health and even the way we interact socially. What's Wrong With Supermarkets helped campaigners get to grips with the reality of supermarket domination and why we must all start looking for alternatives. Degrees of Capture (2003)
Nearly 5 years in the writing but worth it in the end. Corporate Watch (in conjunction with Platform and the New Economics Foundation) uncovered the extent to which the oil industry's greasy tentacles have captured UK higher education. Degrees of Capture showed how by sponsoring institutes, donating to university departments, skewing research agendas and siphoning off the best minds, the oil industry uses academia for its own ends. Corporate Law and Structures (2004)*
Can corporations ever be a force for good in the world? 'Not as they are currently structured!' says Corporate Watch. A no-punches-pulled analysis of why company law is killing the planet by ensuring that corporations are money-making machines for shareholders at the expense of everything and everyone else. The report shows how the law provides company with protection originally intended for human beings whilst at the same time freeing them from the liabilities faced by individuals. It concludes that single minded and legally sheltered, corporations are able to prey on society and the planet while fostering an ideology that paints them as ethically-concerned citizens. Iraq Project (2006)*
Corporate Watch research on the front page of a national paper shocker! (A front page splash in The Independent, March 2006). Corporate Watch uncovered how, since 2003, UK corporations have helped carve up post-Saddam Iraq to the tune of over £1.1bn worth of contracts, from the US and UK reconstruction budgets, and from the Iraqi ministries. CSR (Companies Spouting Rubbish) (2006)*
Corporate Watch's latest heavy weight report on why, no matter how much we might love to believe otherwise, Corporate Social
Responsibility is a contradiction in terms. Whilst other organisations have critcised companies for not delivering on their CSR promises to be socially reposnsible, Corporate Watch's report pulls the whole mythology apart, exposing the way CSR helps companies to dupe the public; avoid regulation; disarm critics; bolster their reputations; cosy up to governments; gain access to international summits; exploit
developing country markets; and continue their war on the climate. Already one CSR worker has contacted us to say they quit their job after reading the report!
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