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.

APP Exposed! FSC won't certify them

This finally blows Woolworths right out of the water!

Here is a story from the Wall Street Journal that shows the world's most credentialed forestry authority saying APP doesn’t have sustainable products, and that they can't use the FSC logo.

In essence they are saying that APP's pulp and paper come from UNSUSTAINABLE sources - this backs up what i've been saying in this blog for the past 3 months.

Woolworths is again selling the toilet paper from China, still WITH the “sustainable forest fibre” logo. Again Woolworths is misleading consumers.

All of Woolworths’ claims that they will look into APP’s sourcing of paper and pulp are just stalling tactics.

Here's the first bit of the story - click on the link to see the whole thing.

FSC's 'Green' Label for Wood Products Gets Growing Pains By Tom Wright and Jim Carlton

30 October 2007

The Wall Street Journal

The environmental group that runs a widely recognized labeling system to identify "green" wood and paper products has acknowledged that some companies using its label are destroying pristine forests and says it plans to overhaul its rules.

The admission by the Forest Stewardship Council, based in Bonn, threatens the credibility of an organization whose tree-with-a-check-mark logo adorns products for sale at big retailers including Home Depot Inc., Lowe's Cos. and Ikea AB.

Some environmentalists have long complained the FSC's rules are too lax.

A catalyst for the group's move to tighten its standard came earlier this month when it emerged that Singapore-based Asia Pulp & Paper Co. Ltd. -- one of the largest paper companies in the developing world and a target of criticism for its forestry practices -- planned to start using the FSC logo. The FSC has also faced questions about companies in other parts of the world that use its logo.

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.

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.

Woolworths & Safeway selling dodgy toilet paper AGAIN!

Surprise surprise! Woolworths Limited has treated consumers like total fools by putting their dodgy and misleadingly labelled Select brand toilet paper back on the shelves.

After being so publicly shamed last month into taking their Select upmarket-home brand off the shelves in Australia and New Zealand, they have put the same toilet paper back on the shelves. I went into my local store last week, and was totally flabbergasted when I saw it! Since then I've checked out a few other shops in the Sydney area, and they too all have the toilet paper back on the shelf.

As far as I'm aware, Woolworths has given no reason as to why they are AGAIN selling toilet paper made by a company that gets its paper pulp by logging old growth forests. I checked their website, but found no statement.

We can not let Australia's biggest supermarket do this and intentionally mislead customers for the sake of their own greedy profits. Our environment is at stake here. When even the Australian Prime Minister admits that we need to address climate change, Woolworths should not be using a company that actively destroys the planet and contributes to environmental damage to this extent.

It's disgusting Woolworths, that you treat us like morons.

Waiting and watching to see what Woolworths and Luscombe do

I was looking over what Michael Luscombe who’s the CEO of Woolworths, looking at what he said last week, and I’m really worried that this is not the end of the problem.

If you look carefully what he said, you’ll see he is leaving plenty of room (semantics, weasel words, call it what you will) so that Woolworths can go away, put new labels on the old product, and use new packaging to put the same old products back on the shelves. The fact that the packaging doesn’t say it’s environmentally friendly doesn’t make the logging of old growth forests and the bullying tactics used by Woolworths’ supplier, in any way acceptable, at all.

That sort of action is totally contemptuous of the public and of ethical practice. If the products come from a suspect company then it doesn’t matter if you change the packaging!

We must remain vigilant - we can’t let Woolworths get away with such fraud. These products should never be put back on the shelves until we can all independently verify that they come from sustainable plantations.

We can’t trust Woolworths to tell us the truth and I don’t want them to get away with putting the products on sale again under new packaging.

Keep contacting Woolworths on the numbers in other posts to tell them you won’t let them get away with treating customers like idiots and destroying forests and habitat in China and Indonesia.

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.

Others watching Asia Pulp & Paper

Here's a link that's really interesting. This group is documenting what APP has been doing illegally.

http://appwatch.blogspot.com/

This is what Woolworths uses to make their Select brand toilet paper. Hardly what you'd call sustainable!

This link shows the intimidation tactics used on local villagers by the company. There is a long history of this behaviour by APP and its subsiduaries, and it continues now -

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2005/032005/reynolds.html

False Advertising & False Labelling

These are some of the products they sell, labelled as being environmentally friendly, when Woolworths know full well they're not.

Here is some stuff that I've sourced about their supplier online. Friends of the Earth wrote a paper on APP (who supplies pulp to Woolworths)

.

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/asia_pulp_and_paper.pdf