The Industry Complex focuses on how industry groups were slowly being excluded from the policy process, isolated and ostracised, where industry leaders, at best, were managing their decline amidst an onslaught of activist and media campaigns against them. Regulators were openly “tobacconising” all industries, excluding them from engagement in the policy process. It was called the Industry Complex because I could not understand a) why industry was not responding to the nonsense and b) that any solutions to their public trust decline were growing more complex by the day.

Each time an industry is attacked, the other industries keep quiet. I likened them to being like the second slowest zebra in the herd – happy to continue grazing today while the lions were devouring the slowest zebra. The Industry Complex concluded with a series of recommendations for how industry should first work together to protect the herd from the next activist onslaught, and further, how to restore public trust and engagement.

1. The Tobacconisation of Industry

Different elements of the industry-wide tobacconisation strategy are introduced, from the mass tort litigation to restrictions on communications, lobbying and advertising, to the activist campaigns based on moral outrage. The goal of tobacconising industry is to remove the right of industry groups to exist as a legitimate stakeholder. Activist groups are portrayed as hungry lions with most industry groups acting like the second slowest zebra, thinking they are safe today since the lion is feasting on another industry group.

2. The Hate Industry

After the COVID-19 pandemic, where many industries stepped up to provide solutions, products, vaccines and technologies that saved lives and allowed societies to continue to function, it was surprising to see how quickly the public narrative returned to hostility against industry. The activist groups attacking all forms of industry (including farmers) were engaging in a war against capitalism, globalisation and technology. Many governments have been complicit in promoting the ideologies of this hate industry.

3. A Return to Realpolitik

After two years of global pandemic, an energy crisis in Europe, global food insecurity and inflation, we can no longer continue to promise a docile public the myth of degrowth, zero risk, free money and a world of rainbows and butterflies. Leaders have to return to risk management where not everyone gets what they want but they could get what they need. As environmentalists were holding inflexibly to their dogmatic idealism and reliance on policy by precaution, policymakers need to return to pragmatic realism – Realpolitik. This would require engaging with problem solvers (ie, innovative industries).

4. Finding the Pieces to the Policy Puzzle

How can industry groups solve the problems they are facing (tobacconisation, continuous activist attacks, restrictions from the policy process…)? This chapter looks at what industry needs to do to restore its right to a seat at the table, how they need to work together, need clear visions and leadership and how they need to stress the benefits of their innovative products and technologies. Importantly as well, if the process is unfairly skewed against them, then industry groups should find the courage to get up and leave the room.

5. Onslaught: An Activist War on Multiple Fronts

Perhaps the strongest article of this series, it looks at how industry is not simply in a dialogue with a few activist NGOs and interest groups on policy issues. They are facing a coordinated network of organisations who have been implementing a complex series of attacks on multiple fronts via a wide range of stakeholders and interest groups with a long-term strategy of eliminating capitalism and them. Industry needs to change their focus. They are facing a campaign onslaught directed at their very existence.

6. The EU Greenwashing Directive: Only an Industrial Disease?

The Greenwashing Directive (officially the Green Claims Directive) introduced stricter measures to stop greenwashing. This chapter asks if greenwashing is only an ‘industrial disease’? The European Commission, well lobbied by environmental activist NGOs, makes that point clear. But NGOs and governments make a large number of false claims about environmental benefits and sustainability policies. From net-zero energy solutions to organic food, these green claims are pure fictions. Industry though does not highlight the failures and greenwashing of activists and policymakers, leaving the term (and the EU Directive) to be an anti-industry weapon.

7. The Al Caponisation of Industry

Bad regulations can lead to cheating and cutting corners. Al Capone developed because the temperance zealots who forced through the prohibition of all alcohol products had created an irrational environment that encouraged law-breaking. Today’s green zealots are pushing through impossible and irrational regulations that are encouraging cheating. This chapter looks at case studies like false organic certifications, the Volkswagen Diesel-Gate scandal and the Nanny-State belief in zero risk. Industry needs to stand up and fight for realistic, pragmatic regulations rather than silently watching regulators create an environment where cheating becomes the only existential option.

8. Conclusion: 12 Recommendations to Stop the Rot

After seven chapters, I conclude that industry is in a box, well-sealed by a small band of anti-corporate, activist idealists. How do they now get out of that box? I try to provide some recommendations while remaining hopeful that the pendulum is now swinging back in industry’s favour. It should be noted that a year after this article was published, the European elections showed how that pendulum did swing away from the post-capitalist, anti-industry activists toward the pragmatic problem solvers – the Realpolitikers.

Postscript: The New Slowest Zebra: The Food Industry

In 2024, a lawsuit was filed against a large number of food corporations that was a copy-paste out of the tobacco industry litigation playbook, drawing clear comparisons between the two industry sectors. While some advice is provided to avoid the situation spiralling out of control, the article concludes with a dark tone: “The reality though is that the food industry is not united and does not see the looming risks as a serious threat. They assume, like past cases, they can just lobby their way out of the present situation. Old thinking for an old industry unwilling to change.“