The Task of Checking and Regulating Government Policies in the Greenpeace International Organization - Case Study Example

Client Research Report Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Date Table of Contents 1.0 Client overview 2 2.0 Situation overview 4 3.0 Key public(s) and stakeholder(s) 5 4.0 SWOT analysis 6 5.0 Research 7 6.0 Problem-Opportunity Statement 8 7.0 PR goals and objectives 9 References 11 1.0 Client overview In this report the client under investigation is the Greenpeace International Organization (whose formal name of registration is: Stichting Greenpeace Council) which is an international nongovernmental organization with a high priority of environmental protection. It has its headquarters in Amsterdam. Its mission is to ensure it helps "protect the earth and its several biological safety and sustainable development, in order to make a positive change in action.” It consists of about 250 members of staff who are a ship’s crew and they coordinate the global Greenpeace policies and strategies (CONNOLLY, 2009). This is to ensure they meet certain daily activities such as the overall decision making process, operating the organizations fleet, checking on the strategic and financial performance of the organization and many more. Being an International NGO it also has to adhere to certain principles according to the INGO accountability charter which include good governance, fundraising and multi-stake holder engagement, independence, responsible advocacy, non-discrimination, transparency and effective programs to ensure it is transparent and accountable. This organization tries to mitigate the impact of environmental pollution. In so doing it tries to provide solutions to this negative climatic impacts in order to achieve some of its future plans (OLLHOFF, 2011). Such solutions include; a) Striving to ensure emissions recorded only peak in 2015 and will decrease rapidly after that. b) Enforcing policies such as cutting down of carbon emissions by 40 percent in developed countries from their 1990 emissions by 2020 and also developing countries must cut down their growth of emissions by 15-30 percent by the year 2020 with international support from industrialized nations. c) To protect tropical forests by a special funding- forests for climate mechanism d) To drive towards exploitation of green energy as a substitute for the non-renewable environmentally degrading energy. e) It also has policies to reject solutions such as nuclear energy which are not very environmental friendly. 2.0 Situation overview The organization is faced with the task of checking and regulating government policies that directly affect climate to ensure they are acceptable; doing campaigns about environmental safety awareness to the general public in various governments as well as solving the challenge posed by the current environmental pollution status. The cause of this problems range from bad leadership (which brought about unavoidable circumstances like the industrialization without control over the world war period hence unprecedented pollution such as the Hiroshima bombing) to the unwarranted ignorance of the individual person mostly due to lack of awareness (EMADI-COFFIN, 2002). This issues are important to help curb the menace of climate change since the individual person suffers the resultant effects such as increase in cancerous incidences and as a result the government and involved organizations such as the World Health Organization which has to incur extra expenses to control the epidemics (ADLER, 1995). In order to resolve this issues the governments sign treaties to jointly protect the environment. Such treaties include control of nuclear energy exploitation in countries like Ukraine. They also have created bodies which specifically create and implement environmentally friendly policies. Greenpeace currently does rehabilitation of affected areas such as the Fukushima disaster in partnership with the local authorities. 3.0 Key public(s) and stakeholder(s) The publics in this case is any group of people or institutions that have a common interest and or connection with the organization whereas the stakeholders hold a position of owning a certain percentage in an organization, they cause an effect or are affected by an organizations actions (GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL, 1995). The key public involved are the staff members who have different roles like campaigners, actions ship crew, action coordinators, researchers, fundraisers press officers, political legal and human resource advisors and many more with different specialty areas. This ranges from young youths to old experienced adults. Greenpeace policies ensure strong commitment to developing their personnel by providing ample opportunities in their workplace, supporting their learning and hencetherefore their career. These staff members forerun the main agendas of the organization while gathering support from external publics like human rights activists, wildlife organizations, and environmental conservation bodies and as a result are able to implement their visions and carry out their missions. Major stake holders in this organization include the various governments which provide first hand support to achieving the agendas of this organization; other organizations such as the World Health Organization, the Wildlife Service bodies in various governments and other international organizations like the United Nations. They have policies that they agree on and this body acting as a check regulates this policies to meet their requirements. Very eco-sensitive governments go a long way to support their programs through courts and other law enforcing agencies. These two key parties have expectations they demand the organization meets hence are very critical to consider during decision making. 4.0 SWOT analysis The organization as any other has a myriad of characteristics some of which can be categorized as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities as well as threats. The organization has its strengths depending on certain characteristics. Being an independent organization within its local areas of operation makes able to make decisions without biased influence from non-staff members. It also makes has international standards to maintain hence this makes it very transparent and accountable. It is a non-governmental organization that can run its business independent of politics from super power countries makes the people have confidence in it (GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL, 1995). The fleet of ships and offices in different and most parts of the world thus makes it volatile and able to concentrate its focus on the highest profile targets of environmental change impact and ensure proper management. It has power as an organization to stop some deadly environmentally threatening activities such as abolishing nuclear weapons. Its policy making is so far what it does best by implementing them in various countries. It however faces quite a number of weaknesses. This include insufficient media coverage to promote their activities to the very individual unaware of this organization. This simply means communication to the wider public is limited hence the support they get is very minimal.Moreover different governments have their own ambitions and goals some of which are not eco-friendly. This makes confrontation of this governments very difficult since they do not have veto powers to enforce all their policies. They rely on local courts and activists to help them making them a weaker body. Nevertheless the organization has opportunities in its missions that it needs to capitalize on. This results from the wider support by the public who are aware of its activities. The many threats to climate including but not limited to past disasters and their consequences gives it a role in the community that the public find suitable advocating for (GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL, 1995). It is however threatened by so many problems in its operation which include pirate activities in certain countries. The never ending wars in certain regions like the Middle East make it difficult for it to implement its decisions and assess the impact. 5.0 Research Having done some research on this Organization, there are some key points that come out and need serious reform. Primary research from phone interviews with some of the staff members in Greenpeace South Africa show that the organization has not yet taken full control of the climate change in the whole world (WOODWARD, 2008). This can be characterized by the main fact that the organization does not have enough offices on the ground in some regions of the world. Also firsthand information from local groups indicates that few individuals know about the existence of such an organization and in case there are some, then their knowledge of this organizations activities is limited. Only the few learned and environmental safety concerned has information about this activity. Secondary research from the organization shows that very few people access their website besides participating in fundraising. Research should be undertaken on channels of disbursement of information about it and the effectiveness in order to assert a more meaningful role to the public. These would develop the public relations of the organization and various key publics hence goals and visions could be achieved. 6.0 Problem-Opportunity Statement The Greenpeace has some communications problems which basically involve insufficient media coverage of its activities and poor distribution of information to the stake holders and public (GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL, 1995). Its campaigns are limited to addressing specific environmental issues forgetting that knowledge of their relevance is limited to the public. There are opportunities for creation of stronger public relations in the organization. This could be done by creating programs that engage the locals in an area in activities that help them and increase their knowledge of the organization such as jobs in teaching the public of the importance of controlling climate change. Establishment of more stations in marginalized areas could better the public relations. Therefore the problem opportunity is simply creating awareness through access to the indigenous locals in an area by use of the media and creation of engaging activities to foster the growth of the organizations influence at very low levels. This forms the focus of the campaign in curbing climate change. 7.0 PR goals and objectives As a public relations practitioner there are several general goals that through this campaign I target to achieve for public relations.They could be discussed in three forms where one is to manage the reputation through improving the face and perceptions of the organization as a non-profit and eco-friendly organization. Further, there has to be a mechanism of ensuring the relationship between the overall organization and the key publics and stakeholders maintain their understanding, trust and satisfaction by conforming to the requirements of their mission statement. Also the public relations campaign will try to ensure things are done – that is the various tasks assigned are properly done including attendance, enrolments and registrations of various entities and personnel. I. This public relations campaign has Specific Measurable Agreed Realistic and Timed (SMART) objectives it intends to achieve. They include: II. Involving the media in support of the program with special focus on individual enlightenment. III. To ensure the organization maintains the trust and respect of the public and its stakeholders at all times. IV. To have the general population engaged in the care for their environment especially at individual level by incorporating eco-friendly activities to support them. V. To ensure the organization puts in place measures to enhance public access readily to their activities as soon as possible. VI. Advocating for creation of more command stations in areas there exist none to bridge the gap in different areas by in the next seven years. Achieving these goals would define the success of this campaign which with the necessary support from concerned institutions and organization will be achieved. References ADLER, J. H. (1995). Environmentalism at crossroads:green activism in America. [Washington, D.C.], Capital Research Center. CONNOLLY, S. (2009). Greenpeace. Mankato, Minn, Smart Apple Media. EMADI-COFFIN, B. (2002). Rethinking international organization deregulation and global governance. London, Routledge. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10016806. GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL. (1995). The role of environmental NGOs in cleaner industrial production. [Vienna], United Nations Industrial Development Organization. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/49731109.html. OLLHOFF, J. (2011). Climate change. Edina, Minn, ABDO Pub. Co. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=394707. WOODWARD, J. (2008). Climate change. New York, N.Y., DK Publishing. Read More