Minister warns UK retailers to do more on human rights and ethical products
Jenny Willott, the consumer affairs minister, has ordered the British Retail Consortium (BRC) to produce new guidance for its members on the urgent measures they can take in order to improve transparency around human rights abuses linked to food, drink, clothing and other products. This is the first ministerial intervention since a recent Guardian investigation found prawns sold in the UK were produced through slave labour. Willott’s open letter to the BRC strongly states, “All companies… need to make sure they are giving the right information to their customers and are being open about their supply chains…Businesses must be aware that ethical sourcing and transparency about their supply chains must be part of their policy, not an add-on.” The forthcoming BRC guidance (due to be published in the autumn) will cite existing good practices such as human rights reporting, ethical audits, and membership of appropriate accreditation schemes such as the Ethical Trading Initiative. The Home Office Minister for Modern Slavery, Karen Bradley, has separately made calls for businesses to cease trading with any suppliers that have links to forced labour. (Guardian)
Employees
Living wage commission rejects calls for pay legislation
The Living Wage Commission, a year-long independent enquiry into the living wage, has refused to support demands for legislation to create a higher minimum wage. This comes in response to a call for an increased minimum wage from business leaders. Led by the Archbishop of York, a group of business leaders and anti-poverty groups had called for the government to adopt the living wage as an “explicit goal” in order to bring a million workers out of low paid jobs. The living wage is seen as the minimum needed in order to secure a basic standard of living: in London it is considered to be £8.80, and outside London £7.65, per hour. It is thought legislation on the living wage could act against a ‘race to the bottom’ on pay. The Living Wage Commission said employers should be allowed to make their own judgements about paying a living wage to staff. Ministers could, however, force them to declare whether they pay a living wage in order to better inform consumer decision making. Both David Cameron and Ed Miliband have given their support to the campaign, whilst stopping short of agreeing to legislation that would commit employers to adopting its recommendations. (Guardian)
Environment
Defra to fund Coca-Cola, Tesco, Nestlé to boost recycling of Aluminium packaging
Companies including Coca-Cola Enterprises, Tesco and Nestlé UK & Ireland are being funded by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in order to develop viable approaches for collecting flexible packaging materials containing aluminium as a way of improving the recycling and remanufacture of the material. Flexible laminate packaging contains various plastics that are recyclable, as well as the valuable aluminium, making it difficult to collect and separate for recycling. This follows opposition earlier in the month by a group of public interest organisations to the recently launched $100M Closed Loop Recycling fund. The opposition sought member companies, including Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, and Unilever to support proven policies to boost recycling instead. Such measures include extending producer responsibility for collecting their packaging post-use and meeting recycling targets. (Sustainable Brands)
Food and drink firms told to intensify efforts to combat ‘untouched’ food waste
Food and drink companies are facing further calls to improve packaging and labelling of their products after new research revealed that two million tonnes of household food in the UK is thrown away as it is seen to be past its prime. A report from WRAP, a UK non-profit focused on sustainable resource use, shows half of this waste is thrown away intact or in unopened packaging. The estimated cost of this level of waste to consumers is thought to be around £2.4bn a year. WRAP is now calling for businesses signed up to its Courtauld Commitment, a voluntary agreement to improve resource efficient and reduce waste in the UK grocery sector, to do more around packaging design, storage guidance and date label clarification. This report coincides with Love Food Hate Waste’s 10 Cities campaign aimed at helping the food and drink sector meet a key Courtauld target of reducing household food waste by 5% by 2015 against a 2012 baseline, and will work in partnership with major grocery retailers including Tesco, ASDA, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, The Co-operative Food and Marks & Spencer’s to achieve this.(Edie)
Policy
New green lease guidelines focus on people
Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA) has launch a set of guidelines that will help commercial building owners, and their tenants, achieve improvements on their sustainable green building practices. The Singaporean government agency is aiming to promote the idea of ‘green lease’ agreements. These will better foster the working together of landlords and tenants on increasing energy and water efficiency, as well as other measures that can contribute to a building’s sustainability performance. The new guidelines will also improve transparency and accountability between building owners and tenants. The BCA has previously found, through its studies on Green Mark buildings and data collected through its Building Energy Submission System, that tenants will generally be responsible for the consumption of around 50 per cent of the energy in a commercial building. The guidelines will place equal responsibility on owners and tenants to collaborate on improving a building’s environmental performance. (Eco-Business)
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