www.everythingsgonegreen.co.uk

Protesters from Greenpeace, some dressed in ape suits, have demonstrated at the premises of Unilever in both London and the North West of England.

Unilever, the global Anglo-Dutch company with interests in food, drink, cleaning products and personal care items, is a major user of palm oil in many of its products. Formed back in 1930 as a merger between the British soap makers, Lever Brothers, and Dutch firm Margarine Unie, the company amalgamated to pool its resources as both products (soap & margarine) relied heavily in the use of palm oil.

Recently rain forests have been destroyed in Malaysia & Indonesia to make way for palm plantations to fuel the world’s burgeoning desire for products that happen to use palm oil. As a result many orang-utans have been displaced and killed; some species of orang-utan are on the endangered species list, with the Sumatran orang-utan being critically endangered.

The Greenpeace protests at the Unilever HQ in London and the manufacturing plant in the Wirral, Merseyside, have involved some 50 protesters, highlighting the need for Unilever to urgently introduce sustainable methods of palm oil usage.

Unilever does chair the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil which aims to “promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil” but Greenpeace fears the slow progress of the group. Whilst the RSPO discusses ways to be sustainable rainforests are still being cleared to make way for the production of palm oil.

Unilever states that it is leading the way to find sustainable palm oil solutions but this could simply be just Greenwash.

The BBC’s speculatively-titled story “Chancellor looks to green budget” is pretty thread-bare, starting with the opening line:

Green taxes and measures to help people struggling to pay energy bills are likely to be among changes in the chancellor’s first Budget on Wednesday.

It goes on to speculate that the chancellor, Alistair Darling, might put a levy on larger vehicles like people carriers, putting their price up by £2000.

And that’s it!

Well, if that’s all the chancellor can do for green issues in the UK Budget on Wednesday then that’s pretty poor for helping people go green. Isn’t a people carrier a more efficient way of carrying 6 or 7 people than having to drive 2 vehicles? If there’s any truth in that rumour then it would be a right poke in the eye for people who car-share.

We understand putting taxes on the least fuel efficient vehicles, but isn’t that why some people pay more road tax than others and why inefficient vehicles cost more to run purely from the fact that their MPG is so poor?

Come on Darling, where’s the incentives to go green. Saying “you can’t do this” or “can’t do that” is simply negative. Why don’t you give us:

• Increased grants for home solar projects
• Increased grants for home insulation
• More green spaces for community allotments
• Increase tax on the most polluting vehicles
• Greater taxes on polluting businesses
• A stop on the expansion of any more UK airports
• Serious public debate over nuclear energy

etc etc

That would be a good start. He’s already effectively nationalised the Northern Rock bank, why can’t he part-nationalise some of our public transport to stop the greedy private companies from milking the public?

Let’s wait until Wednesday, aye?

After the little town of Modbury in Devon banned carrier bags last year, it has taken a long time for anyone else in England to catch up.

In fact nobody has caught up yet, there are just schemes to deter shoppers from using the dreaded polluting plastic bags, of which a staggering 13 billion are given away free every year across the country. Taking around 1000 years to decay, it’s no wonder something needs to be done about the “white trash”.

Step in Marks & Spencer, the forward-thinking, environmentally-friendly eco-warrior of big-name high street retailers, you know, the guys who bought us Plan A (Because there is no Plan B).

Well, OK, Marks & Sparks haven’t quite gone the whole hog yet but they are going to charge shoppers a whole 5 new pence to buy a carrier bag in future. And the future is not now, the future is 6 May 2008. And for a month before the levy comes into place, those nice people at Marks & Spencer will be giving away long-lasting placcy bags that discerning shoppers can reuse.

So what’s bought this about? Well, M&S ran a trial in 50 of its stores where they charged a mere 5 pence for their plastic carrier bags and demand for the oil-derived receptacles fell by 70%. Seemingly the scheme had a great impact and the 5 pence “tax” made shoppers think.

It’s all part of M&S Chief Exec Sir Stuart Rose’s commitment for the chain to reduce their waste to zero to landfill, as detailed in their Plan A. So come on all you other big name stores… where’s your plans to charge for carrier bags?

WRAP, the Waste and Recycling Action Programme, has withdrawn its scheme to help Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (Small businesses to you and me) do their recycling.

In a shock move, just four months after the scheme was launched, WRAP pulled the plug on their “Funding Support Scheme for Recycling Services to Business”.

The scheme was introduced in October last year to give UK small businesses a boost in going green by supporting the groups that offer recycling services to small business.

Defra, the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs slashed its budget to WRAP’s scheme by 30%.

Sad.

Globalisation is a fascinating concept: you buy goods that are cheap because they were made in a country where the production costs are lower and then you wonder why the company down the road making the same local goods at local prices goes out of business!

Seriously though, that may be a bit harsh as there are (some) good sides to globalisation. Take, for instance, specialist software developers - we’ve had first hand experience that if you can’t find a local developer it’s OK that you go shopping in Australia and Holland if that’s where you find the exact skills you’ve been looking for.

But it’s the original opening scenario that is worrying and very topical - The United States, in desperate attempts to stave off a recession, is planning tax rebates to boost the economy. Individuals will get up to $600 and married couples up to $1200. Those couples with children will get an additional $300 per child.

Now this may seem surreal and a little sensationalist giving people back the money they paid to government, to the tune of $100 billion for households and $50 billion for business, so that they can spend more to then help their own economy. Will it boost the fortunes of the world’s (current) biggest polluter? Maybe, we’ll have to wait and see.

But what does this have to do with globalisation? The fact is that the tax plans have caused Asian markets to rally on the news. Why?

As somebody interviewed in that BBC news story remarked:

“The markets are reacting to news that Bush and Congress have agree[d] to accelerate tax rebates for US consumers so they can go out and buy more exports from Asia”

So it looks like the American economy does well by its own people buying boatloads of foreign goods. That seems to be a very precarious situation to be in and a huge green flag to encourage rampant consumerism in order to further even greater globalisation.

So what happens when the Asian economies develop to such an extent that their prices catch up with those in the West? Where do consumers buy their cheap goods? Does the economy stumble again? Is this a scary enough scenario to get everybody to buy local?

Japan’s Oji Paper has admitted to lying “for decades” about the amount of recycled paper in their products.

The leading paper maker in Japan has come clean about the fact that, in one case, the amount of recycled fibre in their copy paper was not 50% as claimed but only between 5 and 10%.

Some of Oji Paper’s envelopes were thought to contain as much as 70% recycled paper whereas the real content was just 30%.

Oji Paper’s admissions come hot on the heals of Nippon Paper Group who also greenwashed their products, especially millions of new year greeting cards where again the proportion of post-consumer paper was much lower than the company boasted.

Nippon Paper’s shares dropped 10% on the news and Oji Paper’s shares fell 5% with Fuji Xerox and other firms stating they would not stock Nippon Paper’s products.

Kazuhisa Shinoda, Oji Paper’s president, refused to resign but did take full responsibility and apologised for misleading clients & consumers. He attributed the drop in recycled materials to increased orders yet falling amounts of recycled material entering the production process.

This item is bought to you on a recycled story

10 months ago the Confederation of British Industry set up a Climate Change Task Force to identify and assess climate change and its affect on British Business.

Last Monday the task force published its findings and it says that it’s not just the realm of government and consumers to be doing their bit to go green but business should be actively involved too.

The team, headed up by the chief exec of BT, comprised a number of bigwigs of British Industry and their findings were not driven by simple treehugger philosophies but by the unavoidable fact that climate change will impact upon business unless something is done urgently.

In addition, the task force sees opportunities to generate more business with the onset of global warming with those companies that invest in alternative energy and more efficient heating & cooling technologies as being the ones who help to abate the effects of climate change [We also reckon there’s a few quid in it for them too, especially seeing the recent Google go green move - Ed]

If big business and the voice of business, the CBI, can come to these conclusions then it’s good news. Let’s hope the CBI can lobby the government for more assistance and direction in going green. They could kickstart funding the the new green revolution by taxing those stupid big 4×4s off the road.

Be sure to see the CBI’s Climate Change Report and video.

A report by the CBI today has noted that “green credentials” are increasingly important to people when it comes to the reputation of companies.

The bulk of the poll attributes great customer service, quality of products & services and the meeting of customers’ expectations as the key factors in the building of great reputations for companies.

However, Richard Lambert, Director General of the CBI, noted that “Environmental credentials and social responsibility are also becoming increasingly more important to consumers’ purchasing decisions.”

He went on to single out Marks & Spencer for their ‘Plan A‘ which ties great products and excellent customer service with what he called “an ambitious but credible environmental and ethical campaign.”

In the unprompted poll Marks & Spencer were also voted as the UK’s most reputable company ahead of The John Lewis Partnership, so the fact that they’ve gone green (or are in the process of going green) has boosted their reputation.

Despite their high profile attempts at “greening up” their image, there are no oil companies in the top ten (see greenwash)

For the full details, see the CBI press release “Consumers Will Pay Premium For A Great Reputation“

One of the big problems with litter is that the global big brands pump millions of pounds into promoting and advertising their products, they shift massive numbers of units, lots of profit is made, they all enjoy the spoils of their business and ultimately don’t care about the fact that their global brands are also creating massive amounts of rubbish!

The detritus from big brand produce litters every corner of this green & pleasant land and, quite frankly, we’re all tired of seeing it. And now to name and shame just one of these big brand polluters, one of these global litterers… one of Britain’s most popular alcoholic drinks…

FOSTERS LAGER

This scattering of Fosters Lager cans were littering a leafy area beside a path on a cycle home one night and every single one of those cans is a Fosters lager can. Now we’re not big fans of the mass-produced brands anyway, but for their mass-market by-products to litter our home town is not only rude & unsightly but it costs local taxpayers money too… somebody has to clean it up and that’s the council’s job.

Therefore your hard-earned pay, in the form of council tax, pays for street-cleaners and litter pickers to remove the trash.

So the point is this:

Shouldn’t mass-market global brands be contributing a good percentage of their profits toward cleaning up the by-products of their products? Should there be a litter tax whereby for every item of a certain brand/item that is swept up from public places there is a charge to the producer/manufacturer?

There are pros & cons to each solution but this approach would encourage corporate responsibility, stimulate social responsibility and make the world a cleaner place.

What do you think?

Wasting water at work is not only environmentally unsound but can also increase a company’s costs and therefore affect their profitability.

This week sees Water at Work Week come into action and the Big Splash campaign aim to help companies reduce their water wastage/usage.

By joining the campaign UK companies get the opportunity to cut costs and lessen their effect upon the environment. In return they will receive cost-cutting tips, maybe gain a little publicity and, if particularly successful in saving water, they can even win an award for Excellence in Environmental Improvement.

Supported by a number of UK water companies you need to register your business’s interest in the big splash.