Choose your heroes with great care: myths from around the world warn that, ultimately, most heroes turn out to have feet of clay. On the evidence from the Alaskan oilfields-on top of alleged US propane fraud and the Texas City refinery explosion-many critics now think they spot industrial quantities of clay between Lord Browne's pin-striped trousers and his elegant shoes. Meanwhile, some of BP's global competitors are enjoying the same sort of schadenfreude that was afforded by Shell's extraordinary reserves accounting misstep. Those who had begun to believe BP's "Beyond Petroleum" advertising will take a fair amount of persuading that the company's long-running campaign hasn't been delusionary or even duplicitous.
But there's a bigger story here. Not long ago, it seemed that Browne could do no wrong. True, he upset people. While greens were thrilled by his early speeches on climate change at Stanford and in Berlin in 1997, his industry peers were shocked. But Browne tempered his industry critics' views (and protected his greener flanks) by proving to be a consummate business leader. In the process, he has transformed BP from a "two-pipeline company", into a hugely energetic and profitable global player. Under his guidance, BP-an early presence in Alaska and the North Sea-has again moved ahead of the pack in new markets like Russia and China. And, despite hiccups, the company's "Beyond Petroleum" branding has helped to soften its public image.
Part of the charm is that Browne and others at BP tend to speak about key social and environmental issues with non-industry-standard candour. Addressing a major conference in Istanbul recently, group vice-president Nick Butler noted that "the 20th century is over, and the old oil industry-dirty, arrogant, and secretive-is becoming a thing of the past. The shift isn't complete-we all have more to do-but the shift is well under way." But candour only gets you so far. Whatever senior executives may say, recent disasters and controversies raise questions as to whether the BP miracle is starting to unravel. There must be real concerns about a corporate culture that seems to have developed a tin ear when it comes to warnings from the field. Critics argue that BP's push for growth and profitability has undermined performance in other key areas, among them ethics, safety, health and the environment. It was only a matter to time, they say.
Such turns of fortune call to mind the plot twists that leave comic heroes at the mercy of villainous adversaries. So, have Browne and other erstwhile CEO green supermen (Bill Ford, for example) been exposed to something akin to kryptonite, or were we unrealistic to believe they could save the world and vanquish all foes, not least those inside their own organisations?
Whatever the final judgement may be, it's worth stressing that Browne has led the trend for business leaders to take bold stands on key issues, with Jeffrey Immelt of GE and Lee Scott of Wal-Mart being recent US examples. Strangely, the ultimate legacy of such people may turn out to hang on the length of their tails.
One of the most interesting business books of recent times has been The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine. Stripped to its core, the argument is that the new economics of the internet era mean that instead of focusing on a limited number of bestselling products, or "hits", we should be focusing more attention on the apparent "misses", whose sales over the long term-the "long tail"-can be greater.
If you flip Anderson's upbeat version of the long tail, you get a downbeat version in which CEOs, companies and industries leave long tails of social and environmental liability, out to and including climate change. Increasingly, it looks as though by mid-century the fossil fuels industry will be sporting a humungously long tail. Whatever Browne may or may not have done, he did the world a service by drawing our attention to the growing length of his company's tail, and to those of his competitors, starting the long process of weaning us off our climate-destabilising fossil fuel binge.
John Elkington is founder & chief entrepreneur at SustainAbility (www.sustainability.com). He blogs at www.johnelkington.com
