Sunday 24 March 2013

The WWF has four times more money to spend than "Big Oil" American Petroleum Institute

The Greenpeace fleet includes the state of the art yacht Rainbow Warrior III. 

Envirofundamentalist organizations such as Greenpeace and the WWF often like to talk about the enormous sums Big Oil has at its disposal to counteract their activities. But a comparison done by American University professor Matthew Nisbet shows that the revenues generated by the American Petroleum Institute (API), the largest U.S trade association for the oil and natural gas industry, pale in comparison with such organizations as Greenpeace and the WWF

In 2011 the World Wildlife Federation Network generated US$800 million, four times more than the API ($203 million). Greenpeace also clearly beat the API with revenues almost the double:

Even more relevant are the figures reported for Greenpeace Worldwide, which according to the annual report represents the combined budget of Greenpeace International and its affiliated national and regional organizations. In this case, Greenpeace brought in global revenues of €241 million (US$336 million) and spent approximately €159 million on program activities (US$221 million) and €77 million on fundraising (US$107 million) across countries.- 

Greenpeace global revenue also compares well to that of major U.S. industry associations which we commonly think of as having inconceivably large budgets. Consider that in 2009, the American Petroleum Institute generated $203 million in revenue and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce $214 million in revenue from its industry members.


Germans are contributing most to Greenpeace funding, but the Dutch are the leading per capita donors. 
Source: Greenpeace

At the global level, Greenpeace employs nearly 2,200 staff, with 1,039 based in Europe and 314 in the U.S and Canada. As displayed in this graph from its annual report, Germany is the leading source of the organization’s worldwide fundraising followed by the U.S., Netherlands, and Switzerland.
As big in scope as Greenpeace Worldwide might be, it still is smaller than at least one other multi-national environmental organizations. Consider that in 2011, the World Wildlife Federation Network, which includes the U.S. based World Wildlife Federation and affiliates in 80 other countries, generated €575 million in revenue (US$800 million) and employed 5,000 staff worldwide.[3]

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