General Motors gaffe is a lesson in clean communication

GM’s chief executive is attempting to repair the firm’s reputation for environmental efforts, after product chief Bob Lutz put his foot in it

General Motors chief executive Rick Wagoner has reportedly disowned the anti-global-warming comment recently made by his vice chairman for global product development, Bob Lutz. At a private dinner with selected reporters, Wagoner firmly distanced GM from Lutz's assertion that global warming is "a crock of shit", according to the Detroit News.

"The comments weren't coming out of our company," Wagoner is quoted as saying, adding that the global temperature is clearly rising.

The episode underscores the need for businesses to tell a consistent story when moving to cleaner business methods, or risk losing the public-relations benefits from such investments.

The disparity between the vice chairman and CEO's comments shows a misunderstanding of corporate messaging, warned Kellie McElhaney, head of the University of California Berkeley's Center for Responsible Business and author of a forthcoming book called Just Good Business. "This sounds like an example of a company with a serious disconnect between corporate communications and CSR [corporate social responsibility]," she said.

Ironically, advocates for a cleaner automotive industry rate GM's activities highly. For example, it has committed to building the Chevrolet Volt - what it calls a "range-extended" electric car, powered by mains-charged batteries for up to 40 miles and a gasoline engine only for longer journeys.

"GM has some serious and real technology, fuel and product development efforts now underway that may allow them to truly re-emerge as a leader in more efficient, low carbon vehicles," said Bill Van Amburg, senior vice president at Calstart, a non-profit organisation dedicated to producing cleaner transport. "The Allison-designed hybrid transmission now showing up is one signal, the Volt [and its underlying] E-Flex platform is another."