The Green Grocer: One Man's Manifesto for Corporate Activism by Richard Walker

Author:Richard Walker [Walker, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Green Business, Biography & Autobiography, business, nature, Environmental Conservation & Protection, Business Ethics, General, science, Global Warming & Climate Change, Development, Sustainable Development
ISBN: 9780241528839
Google: NSIhEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: DK Publishing
Published: 2021-04-01T00:26:40.937552+00:00

g CONTENTS

CHAPTER 4

HOW A CARTOON ORANGUTAN HELPED TO CHANGE THE WORLD

Eliminating palm oil

‘A NATION THAT DESTROYS ITS SOILS DESTROYS ITSELF. FORESTS ARE THE LUNGS OF OUR LAND, PURIFYING THE AIR AND GIVING FRESH STRENGTH TO OUR PEOPLE.’

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT1

Some issues just aren’t as tangible or as obvious to consumers as plastic. A lack of public awareness, and therefore engagement, means that urgent problems are often hidden from view. Improvement is slow and tragedies go unchecked.

These types of issues lurk within supply chains, out of sight and mind. Sometimes they might be hiding in plain sight – such as those Leicester textile factories producing dirt cheap garments for online fast fashion companies, which in July 2020 were allegedly found to be paying their workers as little as £3 an hour, far below the minimum wage.2

At other times, such controversies occur silently, on the other side of the planet. In remote places, enforcing modern slavery laws or policing overfishing within Marine Protected Areas can be exceptionally difficult. As a western-based retailer, rather than send out armies of auditors on a wild goose chase across the globe, we must rely on high industry and regulatory standards, robust supplier agreements, work alongside trade service providers and, ultimately, hope that no one cuts corners that we can’t look around.

Yet just because such problems cannot be seen does not mean they do not exist. And sometimes, it is easier simply to look the other way. As consumers, we may have read disturbing accounts of incidents of child labour and appalling working conditions in the cobalt mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo. But it doesn’t stop our insatiable desire for the latest lithium-ion rechargeable phone or car – and the booming trade in what are now called ‘blood batteries’.3

Unearthing these issues, understanding where the politics of supply chains might lead and confronting our own complicity can be nothing short of epiphanic.

When I decided to investigate one such concealed issue, I started on a journey that took me high up our own value chain, to a world far removed from the orderly retail shops of the UK’s high streets. A place where not only was I confronted with the stark environmental reality of our ignorant sourcing decisions, but the social injustice they were causing too. And little did I know when I started thinking about palm oil that I would eventually be taken on a collision course with hostile media outlets around the world, and even some governments, protective of their nation’s interests.

The palm oil problem

Our campaign against tropical deforestation, primarily caused by the illegal growth of unsustainable palm oil production, was one of the highest profile corporate environmental initiatives of recent years. And despite being fiercely contested by the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia, and wilfully misinterpreted by some commentators in the UK and Asia, it was also one of the most effective – because it made people see the issue for the first time.

As a long-standing supporter of Greenpeace, I had naturally been aware of the growing environmental concerns about palm oil for some years.

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