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Industry & Commerce
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CONTENTS:
(1)Worst supermarket in green report is Marks & Spencer
(2)CIS predicts demand for green motor insurance
(3)Feeble efforts to avert climate change
(4)FoE renews attack on Tesco
(5)Stern Review could boost waste industry
(6)Leave the trade talks on hold
(7)World Bank during neo-liberal and neo-con fusion
(8)Unauthorized GM Rice Shipments
(9)GM rice situation reviewed
(10)An alliance with banks!
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Link to original world bank article
An alliance with banks!
Article courtesy of DM Bulletin
The Co-operative Bank is joining forces with Friends of the Earth to lobby the government to raise its commitment to the environment and pledge to reduce CO2 emissions by 3% year on year.
The aim of the campaign, which launches next month in the national press, is to persuade the government to introduce a climate change bill in the Queen's speech.
The campaign, created by Sheffield agency Dig for Fire, with media planning by Rocket, is part of the bank's "Customers who care" initiative, which asks members to vote on which cause it should support.
For every £100 customers spend on the bank's credit and debit cards, it donates 1.25p to the campaign fund. Previous campaigns have given more than £3m to mental health charities and those seeking the abolition of landmines.
Separately, the Co-operative Group has signed a three-year deal with Scottish Power for its stores to be supplied exclusively with energy from renewable sources.
Article dated
August 2006
GM rice situation reviewed
Article courtesy of European Entrepeneurs E-Guide
The Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health today discussed the possible contamination of long grain rice imports from the United States by the unauthorised GMO LL601. The European Federation of Rice Millers, which represents about 90% of all EU trade in rice, gave an outline of the controls carried out by its members so far. Of the 162 samples for which there are already results using one of the validated testing methods, 33 tested positive for LL601.
Any consignments which tested positive have already been recalled or withheld from the market and the Federation’s members have committed to continuing such withdrawals for any positive findings. The Commission reminded the industry of their legal obligation to inform Member State authorities when a consignment on their markets is found to contain an unauthorised GMO. It also urged Member States to intensify testing of products on the market as soon as possible and to provide an extensive report back on the results.
The Dutch representation updated the Standing Committee on the shipment of 20000 tonnes of US rice which was detained in Rotterdam on suspicion of LL601 contamination. Of the suspected barges which have been tested so far, 3 have shown up positive for the presence of LL601 in their consignments, while 20 others tested negative. Further analytical testing is being carried out by the Dutch authorities.
Following reports by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth last week that they had found evidence of a strain of GM rice in products imported from China, the Commission requested that all relevant information and samples be submitted to the competent authorities to confirm the findings and is still awaiting verification of these findings by the Member States concerned. The Commission has also written to the Chinese authorities requesting further information, and asked industry and Member States to intensify their controls of rice products on the market.
Article dated
September 2006
Unauthorized GM Rice Shipments
Article courtesy of Farm Futures
Bayer CropSciences LL601 biotech rice line found its way into European Union import shipments. Monday the European Commission report that of 162 samples, 33 tests positive for the rice event.
The European Federation of Rice Millers, which represents about 90% of all EU trade in rice, tested the samples with one of the validated testing methods.
Any consignments which tested positive have already been recalled or withheld from the market.
The EU requires imports of long-grain rice from the United States be certified as free from LL601 rice. According to the Commission, a shipment of 20,000 tonnes of U.S. rice delivered to Rotterdam, Denmark was detained on suspicion of LL601 contamination. Of the suspected barges which have been tested so far, three have shown up positive for the presence of LL601 in their consignments, while 20 others tested negative.
Further analytical testing is being carried out by the Dutch authorities, the Commission reports. The consignments which tested negative for the unauthorized GMO have now been allowed to proceed to their final destination, while those which tested positive continue to be detained in Rotterdam and will either be returned to the U.S. or destroyed.
Following reports by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth last week that they had found evidence of a strain of GM rice in products imported from China, the Commission requested that all relevant information and samples be submitted to authorities to confirm the findings and is still awaiting verification of these findings.
The Commission has also written to the Chinese authorities requesting further information, and asked industry and Member States to intensify their controls of rice products on the market.
A statement from Greenpeace indicated the rice was also found in parboiled long-grain rice sold in Aldi Nord, a major German supermarket chain. The Commission did not have a statement on this particular report.
Article dated
September 2006
Leave the trade talks on hold
Article courtesy of War on Want
Anti-poverty and environment campaigners are calling on world leaders not to restart world trade talks that could have a devastating impact on developing countries and the environment.
War on Want, Friends of the Earth and the World Development Movement (WDM) welcome the current suspension of the Doha Round of world trade talks, as it provides an unprecedented opportunity to consider alternative approaches to the failed model promoted by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and its most powerful members. Yet instead of reflecting on these approaches, world leaders are attempting to revive the Doha Round and push an unfair trade deal upon poor countries.
The new trade talks are scheduled to take place in Cairns, Australia, on 20-22 September with around 50 countries set to attend. These talks are part of a push to revive the Doha Round and are expected to be followed by further efforts from the European Union in November.
John Hilary, Director of Campaigns and Policy at War on Want, said: “The world trade talks have done nothing to address the needs of the poorest countries, and no last minute deal will change that reality. The WTO should admit that its free market model has failed to deliver a development agenda and turn to alternative solutions instead. Rather than trying to revive the trade talks, the Doha Round should be allowed to rest in peace.”
Friends of the Earth Trade Campaigner Joe Zacune said: “Any attempts at resuscitating trade talks are of real concern for poor communities in the South as the WTO has dramatically failed to produce a deal that would promote development for them. Instead, natural resources such as forests and fisheries have been slated for a corporate carve-up, infant industries looked set to be destroyed and millions of poor farmers faced further impoverishment. An alternative approach to the WTO’s corporate-driven agenda is desperately needed.”
Benedict Southworth, Director of the World Development Movement, said: “The deal on the table is fundamentally flawed and cannot deliver the promised ‘development round’. Even some further concessions from the US on subsidies cannot alter the overall anti-development nature of what is being proposed. Without a major shift in EU and US trade policy, and without a radical change to the way negotiations are conducted, there is little point in resuscitating the round.”
The organisations said that world leaders have failed dramatically to put development at the heart of the Doha Round. According to a recent report by UNCTAD, developing countries were set to lose between $32 and $63 billion if current negotiating proposals had been accepted [1]. Even the EU's own impact assessment published in May this year admitted that poorer countries stand to lose more than gain from the Doha Round, including the loss of vital tariff revenue [2].
Article dated
September 2006
World Bank during neo-liberal and neo-con fusion
Article courtesy of The Socialist Worker
By Patrick Bond
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual meetings just completed in Singapore were a disaster for the Third World, especially Africans who face a dramatic decline in voting shares on the IMF board, at the same time a few middle-income countries led by China recapitalise the institutions.
For civil society activists, the official welcome in Singapore may not have matched last week’s brutality by Robert Mugabe against Harare trade union leaders or Durban police against shackdwellers. But it more than confirmed Singapore’s reputation as an intolerant police state:
the regime simply banned the arrival of dozens of social and environmental activists, including many with official Bank/IMF accreditation
others who got to the airport were immediately extradited
Singapore even asked neighbouring Indonesia to cancel a citizen’s conference critical of the Bank and IMF, held across the bay from the city-state
Civil society activists replied with a boycott call. According to a petition by Jubilee South, the World Development Movement, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth International, Oil Watch International and several other groups, ‘Knowing full well the authoritarian character of the Singaporean Government, the Bank and IMF appear to have picked Singapore as the site because they wanted to avoid legitimate and peaceful street protests.’
True, but consider the broader context for the assault on institutions of international civil society. Nearly all the major multilateral institutions have been captured by hardliners over the past couple of years:
the European Union chose Spanish neoconservative Rodrigo Rato as IMF managing director in mid-2004
the new head of UNICEF, chosen in January 2005, was George Bush’s agriculture minister Ann Veneman, although the US and Somalia are the only two out of 191 countries which refused to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
for another key UN post in February 2005, the outgoing head of the World Trade Organisation, Supachai Panitchpakdi from Thailand (who mainly served US and EU interests from 2003-05), was chosen to lead the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
Paul Wolfowitz was appointed by Bush to head the World Bank in March 2005
the European Union’s trade negotiator Pascal Lamy won the directorship of the World Trade Organisation a few weeks after that
to ensure that Washington’s directives to Kofi Annan continued to be as explicit as possible, Bush appointed John Bolton as US Ambassador to the UN
Bolton is illustrative, for he was never confirmed by the US Congress since Bush gave him the job during a mid-2005 recess. As the once-powerful, pro-apartheid former US senator Jesse Helms put it, he is ‘the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon.’
Coming from the State Department, Bolton’s main function beginning in 2001 when Bush captured the White House, was to disempower the UN. He also engineered Washington’s withdrawal from or weakening of the anti-ballistic missile treaty, a biological weapons convention protocol, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the nuclear test ban treaty, the UN conference on the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, and the International Criminal Court.
It is in this context that we can understand not only the recent debacles of global governance: the inability to expand the UN Security Council in September 2005; the breakdown of the Doha Round of World Trade Organisation negotiations in July 2006; and the planned shrinkage of Africa’s voting power within the IMF board of governors, from 4% to 2%.
In addition, at a time of fusion between ‘neoliberalism’ (promoting US/EU corporate and especially financial interests) and ‘neoconservativism’ (promoting US petromilitary profits and religious-extremist values) as the dominant bloc in global geopolitics, we must concede the utter futility of reform proposals being advanced by some in civil society, along with some governments, like Thabo Mbeki’s.
The neolib-neocon fusion is personified by Wolfowitz, close ally of the exceptionally corrupt, brutal Indonesian dictator Suharto during the 1980s and more recently, as deputy Pentagon leader, architect of and apologist for imperial theft and US corporate patronage associated with the illegal Iraq War.
Since January this year, Wolfowitz’s Bank has a new self-declared mission: to stem project graft, whose historical costs to the 62-year old institution are conservatively estimated at $100 billion. Wolfowitz is getting plenty of press ink for his anti-corruption plan by asking its contractors and staff to declare their knowledge of backhanders. If so, an amnesty will be granted and they won’t be prosecuted.
Patricia Adams from the Toronto NGO Probe International condemns Wolfowitz’s strategy because it ‘immunises bribers from debarment, allows the Bank to cover-up its own negligence or complicity, and undermines the administration of justice in countries where it is a criminal offence to bribe a foreign official.’
Lesotho is a good example, because the Maseru government is standing up to the ‘dirty dozen’ corrupt firms and consortiums which bribed top Highlands Development Authority officials - including one now in jail, and another in charge of water for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.
After a key US Senator, Richard Lugar, supported Lesotho, the Bank finally began some limited debarment in 2004. Pretoria is yet to follow suit (perhaps because some local giants like LTA and Concor were implicated, which would throw off 2010 infrastructure construction timing.)
Civil society groups are used to the runaround. In the case of the Bank’s ill-fated 1998-2001 World Commission on Dams (WCD), chairperson Kader Asmal despaired at the follow-up findings of the (2002-03) World Panel on Financing Infrastructure, led by former IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus. Asmal wrote: ‘For an esteemed panel to effectively write off the WCD, whose core recommendations have been endorsed by many of its member organisations, is quite remarkable and raises concerns about the value of the report. Failing to address this point effectively takes us back many years.’
Remarked activist Patrick McCully of International Rivers Network, ‘The World Bank’s singularly negative and non-committal response to the WCD Report means that the Bank will no longer be accepted as an honest broker in any further multi-stakeholder dialogues.’
Moreover, ubiquitous Bank/IMF Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (1999-present) also proved to be a dead end, according to dozens of cases considered carefully by civil society and academic researchers.
Likewise, the (1999-2003) Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative (Sapri) failed when Bank staff walked out of the process near its conclusion. Commented Richard Peet, author of a major book on the Bretton Woods Institutions, ‘the President of the World Bank did not listen to Sapri, because he could not. For he would hear, and he even might learn, that his finest, most splendid ideas had produced the worst, most harmful effects.’
The crucial Extractive Industries Review (EIR) was similarly constructed as a multi-stakeholder project (2002-04). But the Bank was not serious about tackling problems caused by the mineral, petroleum and timber industries. According to analysts at Friends of the Earth, Environmental Defence and International Rivers, ‘One of the Bank’s most important environmental reforms of the 1990s was its more cautious approach to high-risk infrastructure and forestry projects. This policy is now being reversed.’
Specifically, the environmentalists complained, ‘The World Bank recently announced that it would re-engage in contentious water projects such as large dams in what it refers to as a “high risk/high reward” strategy. In 2002, the Bank dismissed its “risk-averse” approach to the forest sector when it approved a new forest policy. The World Bank is also considering support for new oil, mining, and gas projects in unstable and poorly governed countries, against the recommendations of its own evaluation unit.’
The EIR recommended a phasing out of all Bank fossil fuel investments in late 2003. In February 2004, SA’s then energy minister and now deputy president, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, explicitly advised the Bank to oppose the ‘green lobbyists’, and six months later the Bank board rejected the EIR’s main proposals.
Ultimately, nearly all civil society initiatives aimed at reforming the Bank and IMF have been disasters. The Civicus World Citizens Assembly withdrew from its controversial 2003-05 initiative to rebuild relations.
The boycott of Bank activities by most forces within civil society launched last week reminds of the calls to stigmatise South Africa before 1994. And why not? After all, Thabo Mbeki has popularized the term ‘global apartheid’ - and now the question is whether to polish the chains or break them.
Patrick Bond directs the UKZN Centre for Civil Society in South Africa.
Article dated
September 2006
Stern Review could boost waste industry
Article courtesy of MRW
By Andrea Height
Stronger Government policies and more investment in recycling and reprocessing infrastructure and technology could come about as a result of the Stern Review published today.
Billed as the most comprehensive review ever carried out on the economics of climate change, it was carried out by head of the Government Economic Service and former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern. It warns that strong government policies and investment are needed, and that ignoring climate change will ultimately undermine economic growth.
The Review comes months after the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) commissioned a report to look at the best way of dealing with waste in order to minimise CO2 emissions.
WRAP found that recycling in the UK saved the equivalent of 10 – 15 million tonnes of CO2 gases a year compared to other waste management options. The review could therefore encourage investment and research into the waste sector’s efforts at reducing CO2 emissions.
Stern said: “Governments, businesses and individuals all need to work together to respond to the challenge. Strong, deliberate policy choices by governments are essential to motivate change.”
The review focuses on the impacts and risks arising from uncontrolled climate change and the costs and opportunities associated with action needed to tackle it.
It suggests policy approaches including carbon pricing; technology policy to help drive development and innovation; and the removal of barriers to energy efficiency through informing, educating and persuading individuals about what they can do.
Friends of the Earth economy campaigner Simon Bullock said: "Government can make it easier and cheaper for business, for industry and for individuals to reduce their carbon emissions - and the pre-budget speech is an opportunity to do so."
Article dated
October 2006
FoE renews attack on Tesco
Article courtesy of Retail Week Online
By Stuart Macdonald
Friends of the Earth has renewed its attack on top grocer Tesco, with a call for the Government to “put the brakes on the grocer juggernaut”.
The criticisms come a day before Tesco’s half-year financial results, which are expected to reveal that the grocer has increased its pre-tax profits by 12 per cent to more than £1.13 billion.
Friends of the Earth supermarket campaigner Vicki Hird said: “Tesco's booming profits are rooted in rock-bottom prices to farmers and a wholesale takeover of the high street.
“Ministers and competition authorities must put the brakes on the Tesco juggernaut and take action to protect small shops, farmers and the environment."
In January this year, Friends of the Earth published a report into what it alleged was “supermarkets manipulating the planning system” in order to win approval from local authorities to open stores. It singled out Tesco for particular criticism.
A Tesco spokesman said: “"Friends of the Earth seems unable to accept that Tesco can only be successful if our customers want to shop with us and our suppliers benefit from working with us.
“We are committed to investing in the environment and the community in ways that will be of real, practical benefit. We are also co-operating actively with the Competition Commission inquiry, which we expect to show once again that the British high street is alive and well."
For more information go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesco
THE FACTS ABOUT TESCO
From Wikipedia
The Free Encyclopaedia
Tesco plc is a United Kingdom-based international supermarket chain. It is the largest British retailer, both by global sales and by domestic market share, and the fourth largest retailer in the world behind Wal-Mart of the United States, Carrefour of France, and The Home Depot of the United States.
Originally specialising in food, it has moved into areas such as clothes, consumer electronics, consumer financial services, selling and renting DVDs, compact discs and music downloads, internet service and consumer telecoms.
Tesco's revenue for the 52 weeks to 25 February 2006 was £38.259 billion. In 2006 it adjusted the accounting date for its non-UK and Ireland operations, and including 60 weeks of non-UK and Ireland operations revenue was £39.454 billion. Group profit before tax was £2.210 billion for the 52 week period and £2.235 billion including 60 weeks of non-UK and Ireland turnover.
According to TNS Superpanel Tesco's share of the UK grocery market in the 12 weeks to 18 June 2006 was 31.4%. Across all categories, over £1 in every £8 of UK retail sales is spent at Tesco. Tesco also operates overseas, and non-UK revenue for the year to 25 February 2006 was 23% of total revenue.
Tesco is increasingly a target for people in the UK who disapprove of the effects supermarket chains can have on farmers, suppliers and smaller competitors:
The group has been criticised for its tactics, including allegedly misleading consumers with a "phoney" price cut However, while individual cases can be cited, Tesco — along with the other major supermarkets — is experiencing price deflation.
Tesco's 2004 Adminstore acquisition led to local and national protests. Tesco's other store openings and expansions are sometimes contested by campaign groups. These campaigns have not hindered Tesco's expansion programme very much.
Another point of controversy is the recent expansion of Tesco into the convenience store market. When a company controls more than 25% of a business sector in the UK, it is usually blocked from buying other companies in that sector (but not from increasing its market share through organic growth). The Office of Fair Trading currently treats supermarkets and convenience stores as two distinct sectors — although this definition has been challenged by smaller retailers, including the Association of Convenience Stores.
In Thailand a rocket was fired at one branch of Tesco but it accidentally hit an Israeli trade office in an adjacent building. Another controversy arose when the Royal Thai Police alleged that Thai soldiers operating as Tesco security intimidated a rural boy into poisoning chocolates as revenge for having their contracts revoked by the company.
Tesco is also censured by those who think that it infringes upon the interests of farmers and smaller suppliers. The company responds by claiming that it follows industry-best practice and sources locally where it can to meet customer demand. In March 2005 the Office of Fair Trading published an audit of the workings of its code of practice on relationships between supermarkets and their suppliers. It reported that no official complaints had been received against Tesco or any of the other major supermarkets, but the supermarkets' critics, including Friends of the Earth, contested that suppliers were prevented from complaining by fear of losing business, and called for more rigorous supervision of the supermarkets. A further report by the Office of Fair Trading in August 2005 concluded that the aims of the Code of Practice were being met.
In May 2004, Tesco announced it was reducing sick pay in an attempt to reduce levels of unplanned absence, which led to concerns over employees continuing to work despite poor health (faced with a reduced income otherwise).
In January 2005, Tesco faced criticism for their testing of RFID tags used to collect information on product movement in pilot stores. Critics label the tags "Spy Chips" and allege that they are to be used to collect information on customers' shopping habits.
In December 2005, a committee of UK MPs produced a report accusing Tesco of "riding roughshod over planning rules". The accusation stemmed from the company's building of a store in Stockport that was 20% larger than the company actually had permission to build. In September 2006, subsequent (retrospective) planning permission was requested by Tesco but refused.
In March 2006 the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) proposed to refer the UK grocery market to the Competition Commission for a new inquiry and called for the Commission to be thorough but swift in its investigation.
In August 2006 Tesco released a television advertising campaign to persuade people to use fewer non-recyclable plastic carrier bags, which included the grammatically incorrect line "use less bags".
In September 2006, Tesco came to an agreement with Tyrrells Crisps to stop selling grey market supplies. Tyrrells was started by potato farmer Will Chase after big supermarkets power of purchasing almost put his farm out of business. He started Tyrrells to gain greater margin by selling directly, and only sold through delicatessans and Waitrose supermarket. After Tesco bought supplies from the grey market, Chase took legal action and Tesco subsequently backed down.
"BRAKES MUST BE PUT ON JUGGERNAUT", SAYS FRIENDS OF THE EARTH
Article courtesy of Mirror.co.uk
By Steve Hawkes
TESCO yesterday insisted it was good for small shops - despite record £1.1 billion profits in just six months.
Boss Sir Terry Leahy argued that instead of killing them off, his branches kept local stores alive by attracting customers. He said: "Places with a Tesco do better as people go to the nearby pet store and hairdresser."
But Friends of the Earth said Tesco's profits came because it paid suppliers "rock-bottom prices". Activist Vicki Hurd urged: "Ministers must put the brakes on the Tesco juggernaut to protect our small shops." One shopper, dismayed that a butcher's shut when a Tesco opened, has set up a website listing small outlets to woo customers. Brighton man David Croissant, the brains behind theshoppersbible.com, said: "It's time to use or lose local shops."
Articles dated
October 2006
Feeble efforts to avert climate change
Article courtesy of Finfacts
By Finfacts Team
IBEC, the Irish employers' representative body, has given an overall welcome to today’s publication of a suite of energy measures by the European Commission. Environment body Friends of the Earth said that the strategy is largely "good news for the dirty energy industry and bad news for people and the planet."
IBEC Director of Policy, Danny McCoy said, "energy is fundamental to economic performance. Given Ireland’s peripheral location, small size and lack of significant indigenous resources the integration of policy across the EU will have clear benefits".
McCoy said that the importance of energy policy has recently been evidenced by rapidly rising fuel prices, increasing concerns over security of supply and ever more stringent environmental obligations. Today’s announcements will be important in delivering clean, reliable and competitive energy as a fundamental priority for the future. Government must now expedite the publication of its energy White Paper integrating the key components of EU policy while reflecting Ireland’s unique characteristics.
IBEC, however, expressed concern regarding the Commission’s proposal for a unilateral EU 20% emissions reduction target by 2020. Effective and equitable emissions reduction will only succeed through the engagement of the US, Australia, China and other emerging economies in a truly comprehensive global strategy.
In the absence of an international framework, a unilateral EU target is unlikely to drive investment in low carbon technologies in Europe but could result in investment outside the EU. This may lead to higher global emissions and less economic prosperity in Europe.
The Commission's energy package is largely "good news for the dirty energy industry and bad news for people and the planet", according to Friends of the Earth.
FoE says that ignoring its own scientific and economic analysis, the Commission proposes to stick to a business-as-usual energy policy, instead of making a paradigm shift to renewable energies and energy efficiency. The plan aims at improving the functioning of the internal energy markets, but leaves billions of Euros of subsidies for fossil and nuclear energy untouched and fails to address the huge external costs to society of dirty energy.
Article dated
January 2007
CIS predicts demand for green motor insurance
Article courtesy of Insurance Business Review Online
By Clare Watson
According to a report by The Co-operative Bank, the value of the UK green financial services sector has increased from GBP5.1 billion to GBP11.5 billion over the last six years. This has lead sister company Co-operative Insurance to predict that increasing numbers of UK motorists will turn to environmentally friendly insurance products going forward.
A separate report commissioned by The Co-operative Bank and Friends of the Earth stated that the UK could achieve the necessary carbon reductions if the government implements a major program of action within the next four years, but commented that delaying action would require much more drastic and less manageable cuts.
According to CIS, its eco insurance product is a ready-made solution to this problem, providing consumers with a cost-effective way to make a positive impact on the environment. The product includes offsetting 20% of CO2 emissions for every vehicle insured under the eco insurance product through direct funding by CIS, premium discounts for 'greener' cars, and an environmental backed claims service.
David Neave, CIS director of general insurance, commented on the report's findings, saying: "it is apparent that more and more consumers are becoming environmentally aware and that influences what they buy, including the purchase of car insurance."
He added: "It is clear that more needs to be done to redress the impact of climate change. CIS now have in place a high quality eco-friendly car insurance product that will allow customers to make a difference and to take action to reduce their own carbon footprint at no extra cost to themselves."
Article dated
January 2007
Worst supermarket in green report is M&S
Article courtesy of The Telegraph
By Harry Wallop
Supermarkets are failing to do enough to cut down on packaging, with up to 40 per cent of all food containers or wrapping unfit for recycling.
Marks & Spencer, which has championed its green credentials this year, is named as the worst offender in a government report.
The Local Government Association, which undertook the research, has warned retailers that unless they sharpen up their act council tax bills could soar by £3 billion.
A basket of 29 different foods – meat, vegetables, fruit, cheese, a pack of biscuits, jam, bread and margarine – was compared across all the major retailers and the research found that M&S was responsible for 782 grams of packaging, with only Lidl responsible for more.
On average, 5 per cent of the total weight of all the shopping baskets' content was made up of packaging.
Tesco used the least packaging at 685 grams per basket.
A 400g pack of strawberries, for instance, was packaged in a 43g punnet at M&S – more than twice the weight of the punnet at Sainsbury's.
advertisementThe packaging was also analysed to find out how much of it was recyclable. On this measure M&S came out the worst, with 40 per cent of it unable to be recycled.
The Friends of the Earth said they were very disappointed by the findings.
Becky Slater of the campaigning environmental group said: "Despite constant green claims, supermarkets continue to act as a hindrance, not a help, when it comes to green consumer action. Packaging urgently needs to be minimised and made from materials that are easy to reuse, recycle or compost."
The LGA said that though supermarkets were working hard to reduce packaging, an estimated 20 per cent of all landfill comes from supermarket and there are no signs of the total amount of rubbish reducing.
At this rate the UK will miss its landfill targets set by the European Union – landing councils with a £3 billion fine in 2010.
Marks & Spencer's head of corporate social responsibility Mike Barry said: "We've set ourselves clear and demanding targets to reduce our packaging and only use materials that can be easily recycled or composted.
"While we've made good progress over the last 12 months, we know there's still much more yet to do in both areas."
The retailer added that councils needed to be more consistent about what was recyclable, pointing out that some councils allowed cardboard to be put in recycling boxes, while others did not.
Article dated
October 2007
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