Move Over Cyberpunk Corporate Hell
Welcome to Ethical Green Corporate Hell
Assembling the full totality of every bad idea on climate change turns out to be a major undertaking. So, I thought I’d share something entertaining I stumbled across while looking up BCorps.
For those who don’t know, a BCorp is the literal definition of ethical capitalism:
Certified B Corporations are leaders in the global movement for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy.
What you don’t get from either slogans or theory is that slice-of-life feel for what it’s actually like to work for one of these places.
This can be a bit of an oversight when it comes to writing fiction. A lot of our tropes about corporate hell come out of cyberpunk. The soulless office workers. The shadowy billionaires. A lot of those tropes are becoming out of date in our emerging world of gig-work, bullshit jobs, and ethical green capitalism.
Therefore, I present you some slice of life.
Green capitalism in the flesh.
A glimpse of the outside appearances and the internal (alleged) realities.
I make no claims to know which side of this argument is correct, or what the hell is going on, but it sure makes interesting reading.
Welcome to BrewDog.
A report like this is pretty standard for an ethical company.
We have the public statement of vision and caring. They’ve brought in a gee-whizz carbon foot-printing expert. They’ve had consultants do the environmental math. BrewDog is taking real actions. BrewDog is leading the way in sustainability.
We also get a vision statement from the company founder, explaining why:
It is within all our interests to care deeply and thoughtfully about our surroundings and our communities. We will continue to uphold the highest standards for sustainability in our business and commit to protecting and supporting our people and their environment.
HOLD FAST,
James
We’ll be hearing more about James later.
But so far so good. The report looks great. They’re even looking at their Scope 3 emissions, which is impressive. Scope 3 includes supply chains and downstream emissions, not just what happens in your factory. Scope 3 is the hard stuff.
A green transition means more than talk. Real action needs to happen. And hey, look! The company is investing in some actions here. This is some kick ass green capitalism.
Good job.
True environmentalism means caring about people too. And would you look at that!
A world in which people feel safe, respected, and healthy is what it all really comes down to at the end of the day...
Isn’t it.
Is it?
Yes.
But is it?
And now you can do a online search for the phrase “BrewDog scandal”. Do you like scandals? Do you? Do you? The BBC even did a documentary and a podcast.
In fact, there’s at least two podcasts.
...you’re listening to super punk corporate meltdown, a podcast about workers rights, institutional betrayal and corporate retaliation. In the podcast we analyze a recent case study straight out of the news, a vicious and unnecessary war imposed by an embattled beer company. I'm Kate Bailey. I'm a workplace consultant and workplace investigator....
Speaking of corporate meltdowns, here’s some quotes from the open letter by a few hundred former staff to James. (From Punks with Purpose, An Open Letter to BrewDog, 9th June 2021)
BrewDog was, and is, built on a cult of personality.
....
Growth, at all costs, has always been perceived as the number one focus for the company, and the fuel you have used to achieve it is controversy.
....
How many more times will we see the stories about sending protest beer to Russia (you didn’t), James and Martin changing their names to Elvis (they didn’t), awarding an Employee of the Month over a sweary can (which was not an accident and was actually approved for print by James), or offering Pawternity leave (which many staff are simply never permitted to take)? Worse, by placing personalities at the centre of your messaging, you have inflated egos and fostered a culture within craft beer that deifies founders, and gives weight to sexist and misogynistic brewers who claim to be standing up for free speech.
....
Being treated like a human being was sadly not always a given for those working at BrewDog.
These days, you claim you want to save the planet – an admirable mission, but slightly undermined when you look back over years of vanity projects. Chartering flights across the Atlantic that had to be filled with staff to justify them even going ahead? Brewing an “eco-friendly” saison with glacier water (half of which was dumped down the drain) so the proceeds could go to charity (but only after the donation was slashed because it was too much)? We hope the use of a private jet has come to an end, but it wouldn’t surprise us if it hasn’t.
Forgive us if we feel any of the claims made recently about changing the business seem insincere; for as long as any one of us can remember, we have never seen anything that has made us feel like BrewDog has lived the values it purports to uphold.
....
So many of us started our jobs there eagerly, already bought into the BrewDog ethos, only to very quickly discover that “fast-paced” meant “unmanageable”, and “challenging” meant “damaging”.
....
Put bluntly, the single biggest shared experience of former staff is a residual feeling of fear.
....
James, this next passage is for you.
It is with you that the responsibility for this rotten culture lies.
....
In the wake of your success are people left burnt out, afraid and miserable. The true culture of BrewDog is, and seemingly always has been, fear.
The BrewDog Affected Workers Platform Report (which gives you all the grisly slice-of-life you’ll ever want) put it this way:
The issues at BD are, it is suggested, happening in an ecosystem of institutional failure, systemically upheld by a power structure of idolatry.
So, if you’re curious about what corporate hell looks like when its gone green and ethical, thats one option. A pathological cult of personality where the airwaves are flooded with so much bullshit who the hell knows what’s real anymore, other than it clearly can’t be good.
Again, I make no claim to know the true inner workings of BrewDog.
However...
What I can say this: I’ve run across similar elsewhere. The kind of place that will put a BCorp logo on every page of an illegal contract. The kind of place where your boss will criticize you for letting your ethics get in the way of running an ethical business.
For storytellers, if you want to write about environmentally focused companies, then it’s time to move beyond soulless cyberpunk corporate hell.
New corporate hell has plenty of soul. The rules that once only applied in cults and mega-churches now apply in the business world.
But hey, they are doing scope 3 emissions.
That’s cool.
When we get back to the climate series I suspect it’s going to be the least slice-of-life imaginable. Truly understanding a shitshow like the above takes some theoretical grounding.