Asbestos magnate to environmental guru: the morphing of Stephan Schmidheiny

Our plain-English summary of Asbestos magnate to environmental guru: the morphing of Stephan Schmidheiny, by D.M. Berman, A. Knoepfli (International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 2000).

The study

• Authors: D.M. Berman, A. Knoepfli
• Journal: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health
• Published: 2000;6(4):351-2
• Type of article: Historical article, Letter
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This item is a letter to the journal, not a research study. It reports no health data, exposure measurements or disease counts. The authors described what Stephan Schmidheiny, whom they called the former sole proprietor of Eternit, had done with money from the sale of Eternit's asbestos properties in the late 1980s. They stated that his net worth doubled from US$2 billion to US$4.4 billion between 1984 and 1999. They also stated that he owned over 120,000 hectares of forest land in Southern Chile, land the Mapuche Indians claim as theirs. The authors described his founding and funding of the Business Council for Sustainable Development and an honorary Yale doctorate in 1996. They wrote that his 'eco-efficiency' and civil society slogans did not seem to have included informing employees in Eternit's 35-country asbestos empire that their jobs were hazardous. The authors concluded that his 'stewardship' had not included a frank public assumption of moral and financial responsibility for the illnesses and deaths caused by Eternit's asbestos products around the world.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Letter to the journal (opinion and commentary); not a research study
• Who was studied: No study population. The letter concerns one person, Stephan Schmidheiny, and his use of money from the sale of Eternit's asbestos properties.
• Exposure: No exposure was studied. The letter refers generally to Eternit's asbestos products and asbestos exposure of its employees, without naming fiber types or doses.
• Main results:
  • The authors stated that Schmidheiny's net worth doubled from US$2 billion to US$4.4 billion between 1984 and 1999.
  • The authors stated that Schmidheiny owned over 120,000 hectares of forest land in Southern Chile, land that the Mapuche Indians claim as theirs.
  • The authors stated that Schmidheiny founded and funded the Business Council for Sustainable Development.
  • The authors reported that Yale named Schmidheiny a Doctor of Humane Letters in 1996.
  • The authors wrote that Schmidheiny's eco-efficiency and civil society slogans did not seem to have included informing employees in Eternit's 35-country asbestos empire that their jobs were hazardous.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that Schmidheiny's 'stewardship' had not included a frank public assumption of moral and financial responsibility for the illnesses and deaths caused by Eternit's asbestos products, and that he had in effect decided 'to take his money and run' from Eternit's looming asbestos disaster.

Related studies

• Global corporate policies and international "double standards" in occupational and environmental health — B. Castleman (1999)
• International jurisprudence on trade and environmental health: one step forward, two steps back? — K. Timmermans (2008)
• Asbestos and international organizations — L. Tomatis (2004)
• Children's health in Latin America: the influence of environmental exposures — A. Laborde, F. Tomasina, et al. (2015)
• Bilateral environmental and occupational health program with India — M. Allred, S. Campolucci, et al. (2003)
• The JPC-SE position statement on asbestos: a long-overdue appeal by epidemiologists to ban asbestos worldwide and end related global environmental injustice — W.K. Al-Delaimy (2013)

Browse more research in International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, or return to medical research.