hankyoreh

Jan. 2. (Photo by Ryu Woo-jong)

By Nam Jong-young

Samsung has been nominated to receive the 2011 Public Eye Award, a prize given to firms that cause the greatest damage to people and the environment. Candidates for the prize, awarded each year by environmental groups such as Greenpeace Switzerland, this year include Samsung and five other large international companies. As of January 9, intermediate voting results showed Samsung in the lead.

Greenpeace and other groups stated on January 9 that the Public Eye is given to globally prominent firms that were destructive to people and the environment. 40 firms were nominated by civic groups around the world then shortened to a list of six that includes Samsung and Tepco. The groups have used a system of public voting to choose the “worst corporation” every January since 2000 in response to the World Economic Forum held in Switzerland in the same month.

The groups claimed that Samsung caused cancer among its workers by using highly concentrated toxic substances in the process of manufacturing semiconductors in its factories. Samsung continued to deny responsibility despite these suspicions.

Other candidates gaining votes to this year’s public vote include Tepco, the company that runs the Fukushima nuclear plant where radiation leaked in March 2011; Vale, the Brazilian mining company that is destroying the rainforest by building the Belo Monte Dam Complex on the Amazon River; British financial company Barclays, which skews global food prices by hoarding commodities; US mining company Freeport-McMoRan; and Swiss agricultural company Syngenta.

Online voting is currently in progress on the Public Eye website (www.publiceye.ch) and finished on January 26. Greenpeace Switzerland will announce the “worst corporation of 2011” in Davos, Switzerland, on January 27.

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