Oxfam ranks food companies: slates AB Foods, praises Nestle
The world's largest food companies are failing to meet ethical standards, according to a new report by Oxfam. Associated British Foods scored lowest among ten of the top food and beverage companies assessed for their social and environmental impact on poor countries. Nestle and Unilever ranked highest for their policies on seven areas assessed by Oxfam as critical to sustainable agriculture: women, small-scale farmers, farm workers, water, land, climate change and transparency. Big food and beverage companies have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years over their sourcing of raw materials. (Reuters, Financial Times*, BBC, Business Green)
Supply Chain
Starbucks agrees to 100% certified palm oil
Starbucks has agreed to source 100 percent of its palm oil from certified sustainable suppliers by 2015, in response to a shareholder resolution from the Green Century Balanced Fund, an environmentally responsible mutual fund. Green Century filed the resolution in an attempt to limit the use of uncertified palm oil, producers of which are allegedly responsible for much of the destruction of Indonesian and other rainforests. "Shareholders needed Starbucks to address the business risks associated with sourcing conventional palm oil and it has delivered," said Leslie Samuelrich from Green Century. Starbucks has also agreed to join the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil. (SustainableBusiness)
Ikea withdraws meatballs from stores after horsemeat found
Ikea has withdrawn all meatballs from sale in stores in the UK and more than 20 other European countries after tests by authorities in the Czech Republic found traces of horsemeat in its ‘Kottbullar’ line. The company had originally cleared UK restaurants and shelves in its stores’ Swedish food section from a batch that tested positive for horse DNA. The decision to withdraw that batch affected 13 countries in all, as the furniture group became the latest to be caught up in the horsemeat scandal. But days after restocking, Ikea called a wider "temporary" halt to sales of any meatballs from its Swedish supplier, a precautionary move that now applies to almost all European countries. (Guardian, Independent)
Policy & Research
Hotter, wetter climate slashes labour capacity by 10%
Earth's increasingly hot, wet climate has cut the amount of work people can do in the worst heat by about ten percent in the past six decades, and that loss in labour capacity could double by mid-century, US government scientists have reported. To calculate the stress of working in hotter, wetter conditions, experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration looked at military and industrial guidelines already in place for heat stress, and set those guidelines against climate projections for the next century. "We project that heat stress-related labour capacity losses will double globally by 2050 with a warming climate," said the lead author, John Dunne of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton. (Guardian)
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