Getting a sustainable bargain - orangutans excepted
There may be lots of bad things about big-box retailers, but in other respects you’ve got to hand it to The Warehouse. They produce an annual Society and Environment Report detailing the social and environmental goals and practices of the company, including their greenhouse gas emissions (which reduced 2.4% in the last year), electronic waste policies, critical standards for their overseas suppliers (eg: the factory must not employ workers under the age of 16) and how many are passing or failing them, stats about the makeup of their workforce including levels of union membership and so on and so forth. You can read the 2006 report here.
Sure, there’s lots of room for improvement, but the fact that our largest big-box retailer engages with these issues and discloses this kind of information to the public is great, especially compared to the appalling practices of big-box retailers overseas like Wal-Mart.
One recent positive development is the company’s decision to stock only legal, sustainably logged tropical timber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council or the Tropical Forest Trust in their outdoor furniture ranges:
This is great, as the environmental damage being caused by illegal and unsustainable tropical forestry is devastating, as Jeanette pointed out in this release earlier this month.
And, also from earlier this month, an almost-related example of the kind of terrible destruction to endangered species and wildlife that occurs in these areas: orangutans are burning alive in their thousands as forest fires rage across Borneo. The fires are lit by palm oil plantation companies, loggers and farmers to clear land for plantation, but frequently rage out of control, destroying the orangutan’s only natural habitat. Many who escape to the edges of the forests are killed by local people for eating plants in palm oil plantations.
To add insult to industry, palm oil isn’t even a healthy product, being one of the only vegetable oils to contain saturated fat. It’s also being heavily promoted as a potential bio-diesel crop, which is somewhat ironic given the environmentally destructive nature of its production. And that’s without even mentioning the climate change impacts of forest clearing fires!
November 30th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
I have been occasionally hearing about forest fires in Borneo over the last few months and I thought that was where orangutans lived but as they were never mentioned in news reports I was starting to wonder if I was wrong. Thanks for clarifying that, although I would rather have been wrong, if that makes any sense.
November 30th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
yeah, the point of biodiesel is that it’s supposed to be carbon-neutral! that’s really sad.
November 30th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
sarah, the first point of biodiesel is to reduce petroleum dependance. you’d be hard pressed to find a carbon neutral biodiesel unless its manufacturers had engaged with an offset program.
one day it may get carbon neutral - but not with the current agricultural production system.
fyi, there was an interesting bio diesel story on nat.radio this morning (audio link).
mikeymike
November 30th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
The fires of Borneo represent a serious ecological disaster, and it is one that is driven by consumer demand for palm oil, which goes into soaps, fish and chips, fast foods, biscuits. The fires are producing 20x the greenhouse gas emissions that the UK produces in one year, or so I read in BBC news. Someone needs to put out a press release informing New Zealand businesses that they need to find alternatives to unsustainable palm oil. Hydrogenated vegetable oils will do the same job. The New Zealand government could also put some diplomatic pressure on the Indonesian government to enforce their own laws. It is essential that the New Zealand public become informed, and that action taken against this serious environmental catastrophe. Why have the Greens not put out a press release?
November 30th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
anthonyr - I think you are right. I’d really like a list of products to avoid, and alternatives that don’t have palm oil in them.
December 1st, 2006 at 7:41 am
A lot of the demand for palm oil is coming from its potential for biofuel, and this is “fueling” the destruction of the forests and the biggest share of global carbon emission.
George Monbiot points out that the market always goes for the cheapest source, and, in dollar terms, this is palm oil. One of the “unforeseen” consequences of the move to retain fossil fuels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_oil
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/12/06/worse-than-fossil-fuel/
December 1st, 2006 at 9:13 am
Thanks ! It makes it clear that political parties are far too beholden to their big donation contributors and it shows the limitations of democracy’s coexistence with capitalism.
December 1st, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Friends of the Earth have also put out this press release, which is compelling and should be brought to the attention of New Zealand businesses.
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/one_in_ten_supermarket_pr o_22092005.html
December 1st, 2006 at 11:20 pm
I think that it is a sad statement about our society that we have tolerated this situation for so long. The wildlife has suffered immensely, while the overweight people of the West no doubt eat too much of the stuff, while driving like there is no tomorrow, adding to the problems .
I’ll be checking product labels for palm oil from now on. And will try to avoid products with it.
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:42 am
Thanks for getting this information out. There is a great team of people in Australia and New Zealand working on the sustainable palm oil campaign there, based on what we have done here in the UK. The report mentioned about published by FOE and written by BOS UK is called the Oil for Ape Scandal report and it is available as a downloadable pdf. This along with a large pamphlet for consumers and postcards to be sent to UK govt made the basis of a UK wide public campaign calling for the sustainable sourcing of palm oil. We have been successful in getting the top five supermarkets in the UK to sign up to the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (www.rspo.org) as well as many other companies. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have spoken to their counterparts in Indonesia and Malaysia about this problem, having been made aware of it through public letter-writing to MP’s and a great deal of press.
Whilst we do not call for a boycott of palm oil, we do support efforts by MEP’s in the EU that are calling for a ban of the use of palm oil (as well as soya and sugar cane) in the production of biofuels until they can be sustainably sourced. Germany has already passed this law.
Please visit http://www.SafePalmOil.org and http://www.savetheorangutan.co.uk for more information. Contact me directly through the orangutan website if you are interested in becoming involved in the campaign for sustainable palm oil in NZ (or worldwide).
Michelle
December 2nd, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Thanks for the info Michelle!
December 5th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
FYI the non independently audited ‘Society and Environment Report” that The Warehouse is now producing in-house is actually a step backwards from what they once used - which was an outside audited Triple Bottom Line Report. The ‘environmental’ improvements The Warehouse has implemented are simply cost cutting measures that have everything to do with their bottom line and nothing to do with the environment.
Regarding their factory audits in China, again they use their own paid in-house “auditor” - and China is notorious for putting on a front for these scheduled “audits”. Am really surprised fogblog is championing this most destructive and unethical company.
December 5th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Thanks for that comment dereesi. I was not aware that The Warehouse previously produced a Triple Bottom Line report - that is a backwards step. However, flawed though it may be, I still think it is positive that a company is producing a report like this, simply for that fact that it starts to normalise the idea that social and environmental impacts are something the businesses should be taking into account as part of their regular business audits.
I also still think it’s great that they only choose certified legal and sustainable tropical timber.