Public Eye on Davos

The Public Eye on Davos was an annual event held every year between 2000 and 2015, as a protest or counter-event to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The project was coordinated by Swiss organizations Erklärung von Bern (EvB, renamed "Public Eye" in 2016) and Greenpeace Switzerland, and included participants associated with a variety of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The Public Eye is a platform for substantial criticism of what they describe as "purely profit-oriented globalization". The focus of the Public Eye Awards since 2005 has been on promoting their version of corporate social responsibility. In 2009, the Positive category was for the first time awarded for a courageous employee for their exemplary contributions. Public Eye on Davos issued an annual award, ironically, to companies they perceived as harmful and motivated only by profits.

The Public Eye was first held in the year 2000 to accompany the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos critically. Together with the newspaper WOZ, they organized an event under the name ″Who rules the world″ and organized a public discussion with the president of the WEF, Klaus Schwab. In the following year, the Public Eye was extended to a multiple day counter-conference with 20 participants from NGOs and critical scientists. They also followed the WEF to New York in 2002, where the President of the Swiss Confederation, Kaspar Villiger, opened the conference.

In 2005, they introduced the Public Eye Awards as a renewal of the event, which was in future the main event of the Public Eye on Davos. In 2007, after Pro Natura stopped working on the event because the use of the event was too one-sited on the organizers of the WEF, Greenpeace was beside Erklärung von Bern the new organizing partner of the event. The Public Eye celebrated its ten-year anniversary on 28 January 2009. In 2015, Davos was for the last time the venue of the Public Eye Award with Chevron Corporation as winner of the lifetime award.

Chevron was 'awarded' namely for its activities of the past 10 years in Bolivia, that caused enormous ecological damage.

According to Schweiz aktuell broadcast on 16 January 2015, a public presence during the WEF 2015 may not be guaranteed because the massively increased security in Davos. The Public Eye Award will be awarded for the last time in Davos: Public Eyes says Goodbye to Davos, confirmed by the Rolf Marugg (now Landrats politician), by not directly engaged politicians, and by the police responsible. As communicated before by Erklärung von Bern on 19 November 2014, following the announcement of the Lifetime Award winner on 23 January 2015, a closing conference will be held, with the participation of the Yes Men, Sven Giegold, the Attac co-founder and European Parliamentarian, and Adrian Monck as Managing Director and Head of Public Engagement of the WEF association, as well as Noreena Hertz, economy professor and best-selling author.

In December 2013, Gazprom became the first company in the world to start drilling for oil in the Arctic Barents Sea. Since the drilling began, the corporation has already violated several federal safety and environmental regulations. Fashion giant Gap has refused to sign the binding agreement «Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh». Instead, it is actively undermining serious reform by promoting a non-binding corporate-controlled program.

Nominees were Coal India, G4S, Lonmin, and Repower