Ethical Corporation’s latest update on responsible business stories
Plastic fantastic
A “breakthrough” plastics recycling facility, recently opened in Lincolnshire, UK, is to process 15,000 tonnes a year of plastic packaging, contributing to a target for the UK to recycle 42% of plastic by 2017.
Unlike other facilities, the plant, a joint venture between Coca-Cola and Eco Plastics, can recycle both rigid plastic, used for example in soft drinks bottles, and the more flimsy material used for yoghurt pots and plastic bags – plastic that was previously hard to reprocess. The plant will help Coca-Cola meet a promise to recycle all the clear plastic bottles binned at the London Olympics, and will make life easier for consumers, who currently struggle with the need to sort different plastics for recycling.
Carbon start-up down under
Australia is gearing up for the start of one of the world’s most comprehensive carbon pricing schemes by publishing the names of companies and organisations that will be required to take part. From July 1, all Australian entities with annual greenhouse-gas emissions of more than 25,000 tonnes will have to pay a levy of A$23 (£14.30) per tonne. The Australian government expects about 330 participants to be covered in the first year of the scheme, mainly companies, but also some local authorities, which have high emissions from methane-belching landfill sites. The scheme will cover about 60% of Australia’s carbon emissions, making it more wide-ranging than the European Union’s emissions trading scheme. The Australian fixed-price scheme will make way for carbon trading in 2015.
If the cap fits
Meanwhile, South Korea’s national assembly has passed an emissions trading law, paving the way for a cap-and-trade scheme to start in 2015. The scheme will affect companies with overall emissions of 125,000 tonnes or more per year, or sites with emissions of more than 25,000 tonnes. It will build on a current “cap-without-trade” programme, which has been in place since the start of 2012 and requires large emitters to stay within sectoral carbon quotas. The Federation of Korean Industries says carbon trading will cost its companies an initial 4.7tn Korean won (£2.6bn), but Yang Soogil, chairman of the Presidential Committee on Green Growth, says emissions trading will help Korea “develop green industry technologies and technology to reduce energy consumption”.
I should cocoa
A chocolate bar that is arguably the world’s most environmentally friendly has gone on sale in Britain – at £11 for 85 grams. The Gru Grococo premium chocolate bar is made at a solar-powered micro factory in Grenada from locally grown cocoa, and brought to Britain by a square-rigged wooden sailing ship. Up to 70% of the retail price goes back to the cocoa growers. The chocolate is “priced in a way to shock”, according to the retailers, Rococo Chocolates, but can be consumed in the knowledge that it is “truly carbon neutral”.
Maids dismayed
“Well-meaning initiatives” on the part of European and American clothing brands are failing to make life easier for poor women workers in India’s Tamil Nadu state, according to research by the Dutch Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (Somo) and the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN). A report published by the organisations, Maid in India, found that brands such as C&A, Diesel and Primark had instituted measures such as social audits of suppliers, but with limited impact. The so-called “Sumangali”, or bonded labour, scheme is still widespread, especially for young Dalit, or lower cast, women, according to the report. Companies “should step up their efforts” and investigate in particular their second-tier suppliers, say Somo and ICN.
Europe forges ahead
European companies lead the world in sustainability reporting, ethical investment research outfit Eiris has found. The Eiris Sustainability Report, published ahead of the Rio+20 conference, ranked nine European companies – led by Puma, GlaxoSmithKline and Philips – among the top 10 global sustainability leaders, with the tenth being National Australia Bank. American and Asian companies, such as Apple, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Google and Toyota, fall short, according to Eiris. The assessment ranked only 2% of US companies as A-grade sustainability performers, compared with a fifth of British companies. “Tighter sustainability legislation in Europe and more public awareness contribute to this difference,” Eiris’s Mark Robertson says.
Drug bust
India’s government has issued its first compulsory order requiring a western pharmaceuticals company to license a drug to an Indian producer, which will produce a generic version at vastly lower cost. The government says Bayer should allow Indian firm Natco Pharma to manufacture its Nexavar drug, which is used to treat advanced-stage kidney and liver cancers. The drug, which Bayer charges $5,600 per month for in India, was unaffordable to most Indians, the country’s patent controller says. Natco Pharma will sell it for $176 per month. Pharma companies fear the case could set a precedent, and Bayer says it will look at how it could “continue to defend our intellectual property”.
Air fair
Dutch airline KLM has suffered a setback over a pilot scheme to power its planes with biofuels. An investigation by Friends of the Earth (FOE) Netherlands raised serious questions about the conduct of Waterland, a Dutch investment company that convinced Indonesian farmers to switch from food to fuel crops. FOE found that the new crop earned less for the farmers, and that Waterland bullied and threatened those that complained. “At one point they got so mad, that they even turned their sickles on me,” one farmer said. KLM says it has “no current or future plans to directly or indirectly purchase raw materials to produce biokerosene from Waterland”.
Treading water
Lack of water will soon start to impede agricultural production and economic growth in wide swathes of North Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, China and Australia, according to a new analysis that maps global water use down to 10 square kilometre blocks. Countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait and Egypt face “extreme” risk, the Maplecroft Water Stress Index 2012 found, but so do areas in south-east England, and much of the central and western United States. Maplecroft chief executive Alyson Warhurst says companies should monitor “water stress and water security and other areas of risk that conflate with such pressures including food security, conflict and energy availability”. More companies need to follow examples such as that of Intel in Arizona, which processes wastewater directly back into the groundwater supply, Maplecroft says.