Member Article

BP and Olympic organisers embarrassed by prank

Environmental campaigners have embarrassed BP and Olympic organisers after hi-jacking the London 2012 website.

The Campaign for a Sustainable Olympics (CAMSOL) sent out a fake press release from the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, saying BP had been dropped as London 2012 “Sustainability Partner.”

Intended to highlight what they see as an unethical decision to make BP the partner, the story was picked up by several media.

The group said they were taking action to highlight BP’s unsustainable practices across the world, including the Deepwater Horizon spill and the Canadian tar sands.

They also suggested BP’s decision to close its solar energy division showed it had “given up on any pretence of trying to avoid disastrous climate change.”

Harry Broadbent, from CAMSOL, said: “BP’s current business plan of increasing the supply of fossil fuels from dirtier and dirtier sources, such as the tar sands, would lead us to a rise in temperature of 6 degrees – which would spell the end of life as we know it.

“LOCOG clearly named its Sustainability Partners purely on the basis of who wrote the biggest cheque.”

BP said they had no statement following the stunt.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .