Moves from the Wal-Mart, Unilever, Asia Pulp & Paper and all the latest from other brands in corporate responsibility this month.
Wal-Mart questioned
A six-year sustainability campaign by American retail giant Wal-Mart might have buffed up the company’s image, but it leaves many questions unanswered, according to an investigation by US website Grist. In particular, although Wal-Mart in 2005 said it aimed to be powered by 100% renewable electricity, the actual figure is 2%, with the company’s sustainability reports not giving a clear indicator of performance against the target.
Meanwhile, greenhouse gas reductions at stores built before 2006 – the main measure used by Wal-Mart to indicate emissions savings – have been dwarfed by emissions from stores built since then. Wal-Mart’s move towards sustainability in 2005 was a response to a perception of the company as a bad employer and a rapacious destroyer of small businesses. Its current green profile is a triumph of hype over reality, according to Grist.
Label dispute
A campaign group is up in arms over a decision by the European commission to reject its complaint about the award of green certification to certain brands produced by Asia Pulp & Paper (APP). The group, Fern, says the decision illustrates a fundamental problem with the criteria of the European Union’s Ecolabel Scheme. For paper, it requires only 10% of the fibre to be sourced from certified sustainable forests.
APP remains a rainforest destroyer, Fern says. The EU ecolabel was originally given to APP in 2006 for its Golden Plus and Lucky Boss photocopy paper brands. The company says the check on its ecolabel certification showed that “our suppliers are socially and environmentally sustainable”.
Carbon solution?
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) at power plants might not be a green panacea, according to a report by the European Environment Agency published in November. Although CCS can reduce carbon dioxide emissions, it is energy-intensive, requiring the extraction and transport of more primary fuels, especially coal, and the “indirect emissions” caused by this activity can reduce the overall carbon saving.
CCS processes also result in higher emissions of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter, and can greatly increase emissions of ammonia, the report finds. CCS should only be rolled out if the pollution trade-offs are understood, the agency says.
Fall from Olympus
An unfolding scandal at Japanese digital device maker Olympus could be one of Japan’s worst corporate cover-ups and may involve massive payments to criminal gangs. The company has confessed to disguising for about 20 years huge losses on bad investments, but the deals that went wrong might also have led to multi-billion-yen backhanders to the Yakuza, Japan’s criminal mafia.
Major investors in Olympus have complained about being frozen out of the investigation into the wrongdoing. The whistle on the scandal was blown by Olympus’s British president Michael Woodford, who was promptly fired in October and left Japan reportedly fearing for his safety. He returned to Japan to talk to police and confront his former colleagues in November as more details of the scandal became clear.
Labels lose value
Sustainability labels on products may no longer be sustainable, a report by a consultancy – London-based SustainAbility – has found. Labels such as Fairtrade and Energy Star have proliferated to such an extent that their value has been undermined, according to the study.
For example, Fairtrade-branded chocolate bars in the UK have now become the norm, so the label is no longer a differentiator, SustainAbility says. Credibility issues with some labels may also have undermined the concept. To move beyond the limited progress on sustainability offered by the labelling model, companies should collaborate and agree demanding minimum product standards, SustainAbility says.
Coincidentally, Fair Trade USA has announced it will be cutting its ties with Fairtrade International at the end of 2011. The dispute appears to centre around whether large suppliers can be designated with Fairtrade status.
Currently this is only applicable for small-scale cooperatives. Fair Trade USA says it wants to expand the reach of the fair trade movement. Critics say that certification requirements will be watered down and the small farmers currently part of the scheme will suffer.
A greener wash
European Union countries have agreed in principle to phase out most phosphates from washing machine and dishwasher detergents. Restrictions to be phased in between 2013 and 2015 will allow only traces of phosphates to remain in household laundry powders and dishwasher tablets.
Phosphates might result in whiter washes, but when discharged they also cause algal blooms that suck up oxygen from rivers and lakes, turning them sterile. Many phosphate-free laundry detergents are already available for eco-aware consumers.
Brazil spill
Brazilian environmental authorities have the oil firm Chevron in their sights after a serious leak from a deepwater well off Rio de Janeiro state. About 2,400 barrels of oil seeped out over a one week period in mid-November after Chevron wrongly estimated the pressure in the well.
The company admitted responsibility and had an initial $27.5m fine slapped on it by the Brazilian environment ministry.
But Brazil has since forced the suspension of all Chevron operations, accusing the company of negligence, and other fines and payments to clean up environmental damage could significantly add to the bill. Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency said the spill was serious, but played down any comparison with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
And the winner is...
The British government has published the first league table of energy efficiency under the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme. The ranking, which scores the energy efficiency of companies and organisations not involved in other schemes, such as the European Union emissions trading scheme, will be used as a basis for the sale of carbon allowances to participants from 2012.
The league table was good news for the Department for International Development, British American Tobacco and Manchester United, which were among the top ranked, but less happy reading for Carphone Warehouse, Yell Group and various universities, which were among those making up the rear.
Bog standards
The international community celebrated World Toilet Day on 19 November, and to mark it, consumer goods giant Unilever said it would open a number of Domestos Toilet Academies, the first of which will open in Vietnam in 2012.
The academies will run courses for people interested in the business of toilets, Unilever says, and thus make a contribution to one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which is to halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015.
Worldwide, 2.6 billion people have no access to clean toilets, with “health, emotional and psychological consequences,” the World Toilet Day organisers say.
The name’s climate bond
A scheme to give investors and governments confidence that their investments are truly low-carbon finalised the “Climate Bond Standard” at the end of November.
The Climate Bonds Initiative is a certification programme for major projects, such as wind energy or solar plants, demonstrating that they really make a contribution to tackling global warming.
The standard is backed by major investors including the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. Norwegian state secretary Hilde Singsaas says the “scientifically credible, evidence-based standards” could help “spur the development of green bond markets suitable for institutional investors”, and would help boost green technology markets.