The PR companies for fracking firm Ineos, Horizon Nuclear Power and RWE Npower have been targeted today.
Contact: Reclaim the Power Media on 07597136793
For photos please see: flickr.com/photos/ReclaimthePower2015
PRESS RELEASE: Protesters Target Energy PR Companies
Early today, eight Reclaim the Power activists occupied the offices of PR firm Mediazoo to protest the company’s representation of fracking giant Ineos.
The activists, who arrived with a banner reading ‘Fracking is shit. You can’t polish a turd’, were dressed as Mediazoo executives and turds. They occupied the lobby of the Mediazoo offices in Imperial Wharf and staged a performance while locked together with arm tubes so that they could not be removed.
At the same time 12 protestors targeted Soho based Camargue, PR firm for Horizon Nuclear Power RWE npower, and turned it into a nuclear contamination zone. Boiler-suit clad activists cordoned off the building with hazard tape in protest against the company’s business dealings with nuclear energy companies.
The protesters are from the group Reclaim the Power who are holding a day of mass action on Monday 29th following a large protest camp outside Didcot Power Station over the weekend. Reclaim the Power have previously held two protest camps in Balcombe and Blackpool, targeting fracking firm Cuadrilla and its associates [1][2]. Other targets on Monday have been DECC, RWE npower offices and the World Coal Association. Reclaim the Power is a direct action network that aims to draw the dots between the fossil fuel industry, climate change, and corporate power. The camp was timed to coincide with an international weekend of action leading up to the UN climate negotiations in Paris this December.
Mediazoo, a PR company whose website boasts extensive experience of dealing with “industrial disputes”, “fatal accidents” and “child labour”, are consulting Ineos on PR and media strategy. Ineos have recently pledged £640m of investment in fracking in the UK [3], with CEO of Ineos Upstream Gary Haywood saying, “I want Ineos to be the biggest player in the shale gas industry”[4]. Mediazoo were responsible for what UNITE described as Ineos’s “campaign of fear”[5] during the dispute at Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland when 1400 workers fought cuts to pay, jobs and pensions.
Hanna Wheatley, one of the activists, said:
‘I’m here because the evidence is now undeniable that continued fossil fuel extraction is plunging us into climate crisis. The burgeoning fracking industry in the UK is locking us into another generation of dirty energy that we can’t afford. We can’t let Ineos and their mates here at Mediazoo spin a web of lies around fracking – you can’t polish a turd.’
Clare Jones, from Reclaim the Power, said:
“The public has a right to be informed about the real dangers of nuclear – from cancer to contamination to climate change. For the cost of building one nuclear power station you could build over 1000 offshore wind turbines.”
Jacob Jones, one of the activists, said:
“Communities facing fossil fuel extraction don’t have big PR companies like Mediazoo to represent them, but here and across the world, we are seeing communities taking matters into their own hands to fight the energy giants and the grip they hold over our political system. Fracking is sold to us as a way of bringing down bills, but we know its part of the same system that caused 15,000 excess winter deaths last year because people couldn’t afford to heat their homes. It’s time to take back energy from the dirty big six and reclaim the power.”
Call the Reclaim the Power media team on 07597 136793
For interviews, call Jacob on 07506272659 or Clare on 07957031821
Photos will be available on http://www.flickr.com/photos/reclaimthepower2015/
Notes to editors
i. Reclaim the Power is a grass roots direct action network aiming to join the dots between environmental, economic and social justice.
ii. In 2013 Reclaim the Power held a camp in Balcombe, West Sussex, a community threatened by the prospect of shale oil and gas extraction by fracking company Cuadrilla.
iii. In 2014 Reclaim the Power held a camp near Blackpool, Lancashire, where Cuadrilla were seeking two licenses for fracked oil and gas production wells.
iv. Reclaim the Power grew out of No Dash for Gas, the group which occupied and shut down the cooling towers at EDF Energy West Burton’s power station in 2012. They later faced being sued by EDF for £5m [6].
v. www.reclaimthepower.org.uk
vi. www.mediazoo.tv
vii. www.ineos.com
viii. http://www.camarguepr.com/
References
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-23744365
[2]http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/15/blackpool-anti-fracking-camp-im-here-for-my-10-grandchildren
[3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30125028
[4]http://www.ineos.com/news/ineos-group/ineos-moves-to-become-biggest-player-in-the-uk-shale-gas-industry/
[5]http://www.unitetheunion.org/how-we-help/list-of-sectors/manufacturing/grangemouth—ineos/