Hershey expands responsible cocoa community programmes in West Africa
Over the next five years, Hershey will expand and accelerate programmes to improve cocoa communities by investing $10 million in West Africa and continuing to work with experts in agriculture, community development and government to achieve progress with cocoa farmers and their families. By 2017, Hershey’s public and private partnerships will directly benefit 750,000 African cocoa farmers and over two million people in cocoa communities across the region.
The Coca-Cola Company takes digital approach to sustainability reporting
The Coca-Cola Company released its eighth system wide sustainability report, titled Reasons to Believe. In the company’s effort to increase transparency, this year’s report was created using stakeholder feedback and follows the disclosure and reporting requirements of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to achieve a self-declared grade level “B+.” For the first time ever, the report is available exclusively online.
Cadmium spill threatens water supplies of major Chinese city
Chinese emergency personnel are erecting barrages and pouring hundreds of tonnes of chloride into a river in southern China in a desperate effort to prevent a toxic spill from contaminating the supplies of a major city. The flow of cadmium has continued despite three previous containment operations, and now threatens the 3.2 million residents of Liuzhou city in Guangxi province. The source of the spill is still unknown, but the possible culprits – six metal companies and a mine – have been temporarily shut down and the authorities say no new toxins are entering the water.
Tesco has announced they are dropping its plan to label all its products with their carbon footprint. The company announced in 2007 a pledged to put carbon labels on all 70,000 products. But on the eve of a major report on high street retailers’ green programmes, the supermarket has said it is ditching the scheme, blaming “a minimum of several months’ work” to calculate the footprint of each product.
Senior executives at Royal Bank of Scotland are under pressure to follow the lead of their chief executive and forgo their annual bonuses. Yesterday Ed Miliband called on the Government to introduce “real change” to the system by taxing bonuses and giving workers a say on top pay in every company. The Government refused to unconditionally back the RBS board on bonuses, saying, that while it was a matter for the bank what bonuses it paid, the Prime Minister urged it to show “restraint”.
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