The “eyesore of the year” award is given by the Network Social Responsibility (NeSoVe) - a network of NGOs and workers' representatives - to companies, organizations, institutions and individuals who have acted very irresponsibly and without regard to social and / or environmental damage, often using elaborately designed Sustainability and CSR reports, lobbying and sponsorship. The blame and shame award “eyesore of the year” aims at uncovering and denouncing this behaviour to demand corporate accountability.
In 2013, the “eyesore of the year” award went to the Austrian company Andritz for its involvement in three dam projects with tremendous negative ecological and human rights impacts: Xayaburi in Laos, Belo Monte in Brazil and Ilisu in Turkey. All three dams are situated in ecology highly sensitive areas, and in all three cases involve the displacement of tens of thousands of people from their homes, often threatened by military or security forces.
The company has also just signed the contracts for yet another disastrous mega-project for Asia Pulp and Paper's OKI pulp mill project in the middle of the Indonesian Sumatra's rainforests. The mill is reported to have a nominal capacity which will make it the largest single pulp line in the world.Affected communities fear pollution of nearby rivers, with severe effects for their fishery and agriculture, as has been the case with other APP factories in the region.
See the Press release of ECA Watch Austria at http://www.schandfleck.or.at/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ECA-Watch_PA_Andritz_Schandfleck_en_20140221.pdf
