Maryse: What is your current view on the work and vision of Greenpeace? I understood you were fired as director of Greenpeace International because you wanted to increase the cooperation with the business world.
Paul Gilding: Well, there were a number of issues going on, but indeed my belief was one of them. My belief that markets could be a very good force for change. Not all markets, but I wanted to work on issues like social entrepeneurships and new ideas in the business community... Which is of course what Greenpeace does now. This was 1995. It is a long time ago and Greenpeace was not ready for my ideas back then. During that time, Greenpeace was sort of growing up. It was a very dynamic and messy time, wit lot's of organizational flaws internally. But I am a big fan of Greenpeace now, I think it is a wonderful organization.
My vision now is that it is very hard being Greenpeace now. When I was working there, the environmental issue was our issue. We were kind of the one true partners in environmentalism. While now everyone is doing it. So working out what their role is now, is actually quite challenging. So given these circumstances, I think they are doing a good job. It is hard, so be patient with them. We should be nonjudgemental. If we knew how to save the world we would have done it by now.
