The awesome Angi Lewis from our clients at The One Foundation has released her latest CSR round up… have a read:
CSR Recycled
A round up of CSR and environmental news: 30 Oct - 19 Nov 09
Environmental beliefs - a judge has ruled that deeply held environmental beliefs are entitled to the same protection as religious beliefs under the 2003 “Religion and Belief Regulations” and has allowed a sacked employee to pursue a claim of unfair dismal at an employment tribunal. Tim Nicholson claims he was fired by a leading property firm having been philosophically at odds with senior executives, culminating in his refusal to hop on a plane to deliver a Blackberry to the Chief Executive that had simply been left behind in the office. The firm claims the redundancy was purely for operational reasons.
The multiple benefits of lightweighting - Kellog’s has lightweighted the secondary packaging on its single-serve snack bars, reducing the case’s footprint by 25%, saving 60 tonnes of cartonboard, and saving of £600,000 a year across Europe.
Standardised recycling logo - the British Retail Consortium has hailed its on-pack recycling logo for helping consumers recycle more after revealing its members sent a third less waste to landfill last year compared to 2005. The BRC has announced its labeling will be rolled out across 50,000 product lines, 50 brand owners and retailers having signed up to carry the UK’s first standardised label for packaging recycling.
But not everyone is on board - Unilever will not be signing up to the BRC’s on-pack recycling logo, following the news that its rival Procter & Gamble ruled out joining the scheme. “We fully support the intentions of the BRC to raise consumers’ awareness of recycling with this initiative,” a Unilever spokesman said. “However, as a multinational FMCG company with brands present in dozens of different markets, it would not be appropriate for us to join a scheme which focused solely on the UK.
Coca-Cola’s PlantBottle - Coca-Cola has unveiled plans to move its soft drinks to bottles made from a PET material that is partially derived from plants, and set a target of two billion bottles by the end of next year. The company’s PlantBottle packaging is partially manufactured from PET plastic developed from sugar cane and molasses crops destined to become ethanol. It is being introduced to selected product ranges in Denmark, Canada and the US. Coca-Cola is currently sourcing the raw materials from suppliers in Brazil.
Cushioned in bamboo - Dell has selected packaging made from bamboo as an alternative to the paper pulp, corrugated and expanded plastic packs to ship its laptops. The China-sourced bamboo is being used to cushion the netbooks inside an outer box made from 25% post-consumer material. Dell plans to expand the use of bamboo packaging early next year and is also working to certify the packaging as recyclable. The raw bamboo is sourced from a forest that follows Forest Stewardship Council principles and is located in Jiangxo province far away from known panda habitats.
The Cocoa Plan - Nestlé will invest CHF 460 million over the next 10 years to boost its sustainability initiatives in cocoa and coffee. The company will supply 38 million disease-resistant plantlets to farmers helping them rejuvenate their farms and increase productivity. Nestlé also announced the launch of The Cocoa Plan, a new consumer-facing initiative which brings together Nestlé’s activity to promote sustainable cocoa supply under one banner.
The good - Unilever and Marks & Spencer are among the companies with the most developed environmental policies, and which are also making the most effective use of these activities to differentiate their brands, a UN report has found. It assessed 31 firms across a number of industries, including some of the world’s biggest multinationals, and found that 65% were incorporating matters such as biodiversity, ecology and sustainability into their marketing campaigns.
The bad - Asda has hit back at a report that claims it has the worst environmental performance of the UK’s biggest supermarkets. Watchdog Consumer Focus’s ‘Green to the Core?’ report rated Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s as the greenest supermarkets in its mystery shopper test, with both achieving an A grade. Morrisons improved as well, while Tesco remained the same. Asda, on the other hand was downgraded to D, putting it in the same category as Lidl and Aldi. Asda has said the report is “not worth the recycled paper it’s written on” and that it failed to take into account the retailer’s work on reducing bag uses and packaging.
And the undies - ethical underwear manufacturer Pants to Poverty has recognised the need for packaging to sell its products and adopted a recycled Fairtrade cotton pack. Previously the company had rejected packaging as wasteful but has conceded customers want packaging to find out more about the brand. The pack reuses 30-35% of cut-offs of cotton in clothes production. The waste cotton is broken down and taken through the common paper-making process.
