Tesco food waste rose to equivalent of 119 million meals last year
Tesco has revealed that the amount of food waste generated by the supermarket giant increased to 59,400 tonnes last year – the equivalent of nearly 119 million meals. Tesco is the only major supermarket to publish its food waste data, and the increase came despite numerous initiatives designed to tackle the problem. The figure represents a 4 percent increase on 2015, with its beers, wines and spirits aisles and bakeries blamed for the rise. The amount wasted was the equivalent of one in every 100 food products sold by Tesco during the last financial year. “Tackling food waste makes sense for business, it will help people and our planet, and it’s also the right thing to do,” said Dave Lewis, Tesco’s CEO. (Guardian)
Corporate Reputation
Heads of Unilever, Airbus and GE accuse UK’s Leave campaign of using their names for ‘propaganda’
Three of the UK’s largest employers have accused the official Leave campaign of “deliberately” attempting to “mislead” voters by using their logos on a taxpayer funded leaflet making the case for exit from the European Union. In a furious letter, the heads of Unilever, Airbus and GE accuse the group of using their names for “propaganda purposes” to imply their support for the campaign. The chief executives add that the leaflet, which has been sent to millions of homes, is both “highly misleading to British voters” and an “act of bad faith towards our companies”. They have warned Vote Leave that if any more of the leaflets are distributed they will consider taking legal action against the group and say they have raised their concerns with the Electoral Commission that is regulating the referendum. (Independent)
M&S criticised for ditching antisocial hours pay to offset wage rise
British retailer Marks & Spencer has been criticised in parliament for cutting the pay of approximately 10 percent of its shop-floor workers by removing premiums for working Sundays and antisocial hours and trimming back bank holiday payments. The retailer plans to increase basic pay for its 69,000 shop-floor workers by 15 percent from next April to £8.50 an hour but has offset the cost of doing so by cutting special pay rates. The changes will give a boost to the majority of staff but long-serving workers will lose out. Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh called on the prime minister during question time in parliament to close loopholes which made such changes possible. M&S said the planned pay rise would give its staff one of the highest hourly rates in UK retail alongside one of the best benefits packages. (Guardian)
Governance & Ethics
Facebook sets up an internal board to assess the ethics of its research
Facebook has revealed that it has retained a five-person standing group of legal and ethical experts, who are tasked with assessing the potential implications of its research. In 2014, it came to light that the social networking company had conducted an experiment on its users to determine how various kinds of content make people feel. That sparked outcry from researchers and consumer advocates, who were concerned that Facebook had failed to assess the mental health impact of its study. Others said that Facebook had failed to give its users informed consent before participating in the study. The research practices of companies that collect and analyse data about their users—Facebook being the most prominent—represent a growing area of concern to policymakers. Last month the White House called on users of “big data” to create better systems for tackling challenges related to data ethics, security, and privacy. (Fast Company, MIT Technology Review)
Policy
Bloomberg Taskforce and European Commission form new climate change alliance
After two years of overlapping efforts, the European Commission and Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, will merge their initiatives to reduce cities’ greenhouse emissions and mitigate the effects of the climate change. The fusion of the EU’s Covenant of Mayors and Bloomberg’s smaller Compact of Mayors will create the new global Covenant of Mayors, an alliance of 7,500 cities, representing more than 600 million inhabitants across the planet. The European Commission will hand over control of day-to-day management, although the new Covenant will remain accountable to a co-chair from the Commission. While the merger aims to reach more cities by decreasing competition amongst entities, some voices in Brussels complained that the Commission had yielded to pressure from Bloomberg. (edie)
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