Two Examples of Sustainable Stupidity

Organisations, corporates, governments and anyone who states or makes a claim about their sustainability really can be pretty stupid in the company they keep and the real message they are sending.

Here are a couple of cases where apparently no questions have been asked, a silo mentality exists and a complete lack of common sense has been applied in understanding the deeper issues if you are claiming to be sustainable.

Case 1 - The Rainforest Alliance v Mars

Mars use cocoa and palm oils and want to assure the world that they are sourcing ethically. The Rainforest Alliance (RFA) are wanting to protect the rain forests, the indigenous species and the native peoples of these lands from uncontrolled development of any kind. The RFA has a certification scheme for sustainable cocoa procurement and Mars are to get the certification for their Galaxy chocolate bar. Sounds a great deal doesn't it? Well the certification is just for the cocoa part of the bar not for the oil, the oil is not from sustainable sources and though Mars have made a commitment to source palm oil from 100% sustainable sources this will not happen until 2015.

Will the consumer think the whole bar is made from sustainable sources when they see the RFA certificate on it? Yes indeedy they will and they certainly won't ask the deeper question trusting the RFA to have done it's homework for them.

The RFA gets a large dose of cash from Mars and some of their work benefits while other parts continue to be threatened by the very same corporate. Its certainly not big or clever, shows an incredible lack of common sense from both parties.

Case 2 The Cooperative v British Dairy Farmers

The Cooperative is a leading supermarket chain here in the UK, it is owned by its members, the shoppers who visit it and buy from its 2500 stores. The Coop are also the countries biggest farming company with more acres under the plough than any other organisation so you think that is charity begins at home they'd be supporting fair trade across their business. There support of Fair Trade is very in your face and their poster clad trucks proudly shout this message as they roll down the highways along with their commitment to be 'Good for Everyone'. The Coop had a contract with Dairy Farmers of Britain (DFoB) a farmer controlled producers group which they withdrew last year an action which ultimately caused the collapse of the DFoB. It costs 27p per litre to produce milk here in the UK and though no UK supermarket pays farmers this amount it is the Cooperative, champion of Fair Trade, the UK's largest farmers, who pays the least of all the supermarkets a miserly 23.89p. Two dairy farmers are going out of business every day in the UK and as a result more milk is being imported. Clearly the whole supermarket business is at fault but the Coops position as the worst of the main players is at least hypocritical because as farmers they should at least know what the costs are in producing milk are and at most they really need to think a bit deeper about the mixed message being sent. It's clearly in The Coops heads not ok to support UK dairy farmers but ok to support overseas farmers via the Fair Trade brand. The Fair Trade organisation, equally does not seem to be bothered that a leading brand is behaving in this way and potentially tarnishing their objectives by being inconsistent.

Stupid is as stupid does as Forrest Gump would say but the mentality of all these organisations in believing their own sustainability hype is clearly stupidity of the highest order.