greenwashing
A New “Study” on Forest Certification: SFI’s Latest Attempt to Fool Consumers?
I’ve posted before on the competing systems of forest certification, in particular the fight between the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), which is really the gold standard, and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), an industry-driven effort that has substantially weaker standards and many have accused of greenwashing. SFI has improved its standards in recent years, but …
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CONTINUE READINGA Great New Appointment: Edith Ramirez as FTC Chair
President Obama has appointed Edith Ramirez to chair the Federal Trade Commission; since she already serves on the FTC, this thankfully does not require Senate confirmation. It’s a terrific appointment. I have known Edith for about 15 years now; we served together on the board of the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice, one of …
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CONTINUE READINGSeaWorld Doesn’t Care THAT Much
As the father of an eight-year-old, I am painfully aware of the attractions of charismatic megafauna. Over the weekend, I took Rose to SeaWorld, pretty much the capital of charismatic megafauna, for an overnight with her YMCA youth group. We slept with the penguins, and saw lots of other — well, charismatic megafauna. The highlight …
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CONTINUE READINGAttention K-Mart Shoppers! Get With the Program
I’ve blogged before about Asia Pulp & Paper, which has one of the worst records on destroying critical species habitat in its logging operations and abusing human rights in the process. (Not surprisingly, it also has a fake certification from greenwahser Programme for the Endorsement of Forestry Certification). Well, the tigers (and humans) have some …
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CONTINUE READINGMore Forest Greenwashing: Asia Pulp & Paper and Fake Certifications
In the firmament of environmental organizations, the World Wildlife Fund is about as centrist and mainstream as you are going to get. For many years, it was associated with the sorts of Republicans that Dan highlights in his post below: those who took the “conserve” part of conservative seriously. That’s why the report it issued …
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CONTINUE READINGLawyerly Greenwashing from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative
A few weeks ago, I argued that only wood and paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council really should be called a sustainable product. Much to my surprise, the post got a robo-comment from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, the paper industry’s group, claiming that it, too, was a legitimate certification organization. Given SFI’s pretty shameful …
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CONTINUE READINGPeet’s Coffee Thinks You’re Stupid
…or at least not very important. Following up on my posts concerning Peet’s membership on the California Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors (here and here; Eric follows up with a left hook here), another one of our intrepid readers e-mailed Peet’s to get an explanation. Here’s what the reader got back: Peet’s is one of …
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CONTINUE READINGPeet’s Coffee’s Weak Attempts to Rebut Greenwashing Charges
An energetic reader noticed my post last week on Peet’s Coffee’s seeming alliance with the California Chamber of Commerce, the most reactionary anti-environmental force in state politics. He forwarded it to Peet’s PR department and demanded an explanation. Here’s what he got back: We’re disturbed by the blog posting you sent to us which “effectively” …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Next Generation of Greenwashing?
After my post concerning paper and plastic bags appeared, LegalPlanet was the recipient of a robo-comment from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, an industry-backed group that I suggested was greenwashing bad forest practices. SFI now says that it has cleaned up its act without ever acknowledging that the act was bad in the first place. …
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CONTINUE READINGPaper or Plastic…or Neither?
Paul Koretz is a Los Angeles City Councilmember who represents most of the city’s west side (including UCLA) and large chunks of the San Fernando Valley. And he’s got a proposal that environmentalists love: Hoping to reduce the billions of grocery bags circulating throughout the city, an L.A. councilman Tuesday called for a sweeping ban …
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