MRS / Greenpeace complaint

Date: 16 October 2008

Following the adjudication by the Market Research Society on complaints by Greenpeace, four complaints were dismissed while one technical complaint was upheld.

Viki Cooke, Chief Executive of Opinion Leader said:
 
“We do not accept the MRS ruling, which we believe to be incorrect. We do not believe that the MRS - a market research trade body - is competent to assess these new forms of deliberative engagement. Instead we have been involved in developing new guidelines in collaboration with a team of experienced practitioners, commissioners and evaluators - the MRS has not been involved in this.
 
Opinion Leader is the most experienced practitioner of deliberative engagement methods in the UK and has pioneered many of the techniques now being used. We drew on this expertise, as well as best practice from around the world, when designing this project and made every effort to ensure that it was as thorough as possible.
 
The complaint was made by environmental activist group, Greenpeace, who came to the project with a predetermined point of view, and are now seeking to damage the project's reputation to support that point of view. They initially participated in the process, along with a wide range of other stakeholders, but withdrew from the project on the eve of the event and refused to act as witnesses or provide evidence.
 
We are completely satisfied that the project was sound and fair and are proud of the Opinion Leader team's work on this and more generally in developing these innovative methods.”