Woolies pay lip service to the environment

An article in Monday’s Sydney Morning Herald reports Woolworths (Safeway) supermarkets have suddenly developed an environmental conscience.

The report, by Ben Cubby, details Woolworths’ plan to “conform to stringent environmental standards” by upgrading most of their old supermarket fridges.

The fridges currently in use by Woolworths and Safeway are described as chronically leaking potent greenhouse gas as well as having “high energy consumption”.

So the fact that Woolworths Ltd. has now decided to upgrade some of their environmentally damaging greenhouse gas-emitting fridges, is great. HOWEVER, the faact still remains that Woolworths (including Safeway), continue to permit the destruction of the environment through the suppliers of their OWN HOMEBRAND SELECT tissue products.

Back in November 2007, for the company AGM, Woolworths promised to investigate their suppliers, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) – a company the WWF wont even certify because of all of the environmental damage they do.

Yet Michael Luscombe has done nothing!! The company has not announced their findings, or even that the investigation is underway. If they can not confirm that their toilet paper, tissue and paper towel is from sustainable sources, the product should be REMOVED FROM THE SHELVES. Once again, I think this is just a stalling tactic from Woolworths, hoping shoppers will forget.

Woolworths continue to be an environmental vandal every day they sell the Select toilet paper, tissues and paper towel.

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.

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!

Victory! Wooworths recalls the product

I'm sorry I haven’t updated the blog for a few days but I’ve been unwell.

Thank you to all those of you who helped in this campaign.

We now have some success! On Monday Woolworths said they would take the Select toilet and facial tissues which are manufactured by APP off the shelves. You can read what the Woolworths ceo said here.

Thank you to all those who helped me this far and I hope they will continue to help: John Kaye, the Green member for the NSW Parliament, the reporters Wendy Frew at the Herald, the ABC, Friends of the Earth too and others who helped, including the CFMEU union.

Please keep watching Woolworths like I will because I don’t trust them.