Woolworths "breaking its own Corporate Social Responsibility Charter...

...by knowingly selling ineffective and possibly harmful products”

A story in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald says that Woolworths is putting people at risk by continuing to sell herbal weight-loss powders and pills that a leading medical scientist says are dangerous.

Professor Lesley Campbell from St Vincent’s hospital in Sydney is demanding that Woolworths justify its decision to continue selling the weight-loss pill Xantrax, even through the pill distributor has been banned by the TGA from making appetite-suppressant and weight-loss claims.

This is yet another example of Woolworths trying to absolve themselves of their ethical responsibilities. Their Corporate Social Responsibility charter states a pledge to “always be truthful in what we advertise and how we promote the products we sell”. Clearly their charter isn’t worth the paper it’s written on (no doubt supplied by APP from unsustainable forest fibre).

Professor Campbell has ‘put Woolworths on notice’, saying that should anyone suffer an adverse effect or die because of the TGA-banned products they’re selling, that St. Vincent’s hospital will use its record of correspondence to prove Woolworths continued to sell the discredited products despite knowing they were ineffective and possibly dangerous.

I’m glad Professor Campbell is putting pressure on Woolworths about this.

Woolworths just continues to treat us with contempt.

ANZ should put pressure on Woolworths to be responsible

In case you missed it,

1. ANZ has installed 700+ ATMs in Woolworths and Safeway stores.
2. ANZ was recently ranked as leading global bank in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index http://www.anz.com/australia/support/library/mr/mr20070910.pdf

As the leading global bank in terms of corporate social responsibility and sustainability, should not be dealing with a company that is using unsustainable and un-environmental measures to increase its profits.

I am calling on ANZ to put pressure on Woolworths to do the right thing, and not allow Woolworths to taint the bank’s ranking like this.

The Greens comment on Woolworths

I was just linking my previous blog back to the Sydney Morning Herald website, when I found that this story is also on the website.

Woolworths under fire over 'green' paper

In this story too, Greens MP, John Kaye, said they will take make a complaint to the ACCC - great news!

The article wasn't in the paper today (if you see it in the paper, let me know and I'll post it up here - sustainable55 at hotmail . com)

Thanks again to John Kaye, for all of his help in this issue. It's really great to know that there are politicians who will take on the big businesses and stand up for consumers.

New Dodgy Labelling: Woolworths puts illegally logged tissue back on the shelves

Woolworths has reached new lows. Not only has it put its illegally logged tissues and paper towel back on the shelves, it has covered up their fake logo “Sustainable Forest Fibre”. To get around the problem they had of the misleading labelling, they’ve now just put grey stickers over the “sustainable forest fibre” part.

Here’s a couple of pictures



Woolworths is still selling exactly the same UN-sustainable, illegally logged product from APP to the public.

It was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald today too.

While they have technically gotten around the false and misleading labelling issue, they are still treating us like idiots.

The company said they would get the World Wildlife Fund to look into the source of the products – but the WWF hasn’t said anything at all about it. Woolworths has just popped it back on the shelves, obviously hoping no one would notice, or that we all would have forgotten.

Woolworths, we don’t want this product!

Labor pledges a crackdown on illegal timber imports – what on earth will Woolworths and Safeway do?

Today The Australian newspaper has a story on page 5 about the Labor party pledging to crackdown on illegal timber imports into Australia if they win the election.

Forestry and Conservation Minister for the Liberal Government, Eric Abetz, admits that “10 per cent of Australia’s timber imports were sourced illegally”.

HOWEVER, he goes on to say that “to ban illegal imports would actually mean banning most timber imports” – meaning most of the stuff that comes into Australia now is actually illegally logged! Of course this must include the illegally logged products that Woolworths imports from APP.

What I want to know if the Labor party is elected, will proposed crackdown apply to timber-derived products that come into the country too, like paper and paper pulp. If it does, then maybe this is what will finally force Woolworths to stop using illegally logged pulp products imported from Asia in their own Select brand toilet paper, tissues and paper towel.

What Woolworths (Safeway) is doing is ethically wrong! We need to keep telling them that they can’t do this in Australia! Go here to tell them what you think, or email me (sustainable55 at hotmail . com) and tell me what you think about it. Let me know what you think of the blog too.

Here is the article from today’s paper.