The birth of environmental politics commenced in 1995 with the highly emotive protest conducted by the Greenpeace environmental pressure group, against the disposal of the redundant Brent Spar oil buoy in deep Atlantic waters. Since then society (people, business and governments) have had to live with the inevitable and often unpredictable consequences, of widely held public environmental concerns, irrespective of whether these are scientifically valid or flawed; rational or illogical, .

While not the first example of action directed against major companies by a pressure group for environmental reasons, protests about the disposal of the Brent Spar took place against a background of respected scientific opinion and evidence that sea disposal was the best practicable environmental option for this particular structure.

Greenpeace claimed that the 65,000 tonne capacity oil loading buoy weighing 14,000 tonnes, still contained 5,000 tonnes of oil and sludge contaminated with heavy metals and radioactivity which would harm marine life. The Anglo-Dutch Shell oil group who own the buoy, which they operated jointly with the Esso oil company, said however, that the buoy contained only 100 tonnes of sludge of which 90% was sand and only 10% oil residues. The low level of radioactivity, it was widely recognised, was entirely attributable to natural sources as a result of sea-bed drilling operations. Scientists at the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences commented in a letter to The Times that the decision to opt for sea disposal was `probably correct' and that Greenpeace was making exaggerated claims about pollution risks. The Scottish Office, the licensing authority which gave permission for disposal of the buoy at sea, were confident that an earlier site-specific survey had provided enough information to justify the sea disposal decision.

Public assurances of support in favour of the decision to dispose of the Brent Spar in the Atlantic were given to the company by the then UK Prime Minister, Mr. John Major. This followed criticism of the company by the Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, who was reflecting public opinion in Germany. As the high profile protest by Greenpeace continued, Shell subsequently abandoned the planned disposal of the Brent Spar at sea - but in the absence of any alternative prearranged plan for disposal of the buoy.

Factors influencing the company's change of direction included a growing consumer boycott directed by Greenpeace against Shell petrol stations on continental Europe. During the course of the protest, Greenpeace supporters were landed on the buoy while it was under tow in an operation which many observers regarded as highly unsafe. In totally separate and unrelated incidents, fire-bomb attacks were carried out on Shell petrol stations in Frankfurt and Hamburg.

It is against this background of hysteria that some observers of environmental matters spoke of `eco-terrorism' (William Rees Mogg) and `environmental realpolitik' (Labour MP Frank Dobson) influencing Shell's decision to abandon the sea disposal of the Brent Spar.

There is little doubt that the UK Government and Shell were both highly embarrassed by the episode. Criticism of the planned sea disposal of the Brent Spar by other governments, however, was restricted to European countries which do not have any oil operations in the North Sea and thus do not have a problem to solve. Shell had quite correctly made the necessary investment to establish what the best practicable environmental option was, and presented the case for this to government but in doing so, had failed to fully consider the likely public reaction.

The design of the Brent Spar buoy was unique but it is one of only about 200 fixed oil and gas structures in the North Sea - most of which are platforms. With the exception of about 53 deep water structures, most North Sea oil platforms would have been disposed of on land in any event. The Norwegian Troll gas platform, however, which is taller than the Chicago Sears Tower and whose concrete base alone weighs 656,000 tonnes, is an indication of the size of bigger potential problems.

Greenpeace played an important role in raising the profile of environmental matters but, in this particular case, was mistaken. Nevertheless, all of the parties involved in this particular episode lost some credibility but in any event, a new form of environmental politics most certainly irreversibly arrived on the scene as a result of the Brent Spar incident.

The `environmental realpolitik' could frighten some major companies away from active participation in helping to bring about further environmental improvement. If that happens, then the Greenpeace campaign against Brent Spar will have done the environmental cause a great disservice during a period which saw a steadily growing appreciation of the need by businesses to better understand and appreciate environmental matters. That the `realpolitik' of market pressures may prevent such a reaction from industry may provide some saving grace.

Despite the many valid criticisms which can be made of the Greenpeace campaign against Brent Spar, industry will have to learn some hard lessons from the episode. First, as a result of Shell's changed decision, direct political support for major operations with environmental import will, in future, probably not be so easily obtainable, if available at all. Second, companies, if they are not to be become increasingly and adversely affected by unjustified pressure group campaigns, will have to work very much harder to establish their own environmental credentials with the media and the general public. Third,companies will need to include long term environmental considerations up front with other business factors in their decision making processes before, and not after, embarking on new large scale enterprises. Last, but not least, industry will need to anticipate that the ramifications of the Brent Spar incident will be felt world-wide.

Whether such lessons will be learnt for the future must remain in considerable doubt. Similar echoes with the Brent Spar story abound, for example, in the more recent attempt during 2003/4 to introduce GM food crops into Britain. Most of the mistakes unlike in the Brent Spar saga, were this time made by business and government, including Prime Minister Tony Blair. These all chose to largely ignore the importance of the precautionary principle so widely adopted for environmental protection purposes by government and industry over the previous decade.

While Greenpeace subsequently admitted it made some mistakes in its Brent Spar campaign, these will eventually come to be regarded as very minor compared to the much bigger unadmitted mistake of Tony Blair's government in attempting to ignore the precautionary principle in supporting the early introduction of GM crops despite a lack of sufficient field trial data and in defiance of public anxieties in the wake of the BSE tragedy.

©Peter Doyle BSc MSc.