Looking Behind the Labels
As consumers we can learn to dismiss much of a company's product claims and advertising.
But what about Fairtrade, 'Cruelty Free' or Recycled products?
Behind the feel-good labels there is often a business which violates the most basic ethics. Below are just two examples from many.
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that BAD NEWS in more detail
Tests on animals
Boycott call by Uncaged for animal testing (January 2010)
Many brands made by Nestlé Purina are listed on the Uncaged website's petfood and animal testing page under the 'brands to boycott' section because of testing on animals.
Rainforest destruction
According to a report by Friends of the Earth Netherlands referred to on the Climate Change Corporation website dated 5 July 2007, a supplier of palm oil to Nestlé, Wilmar Trading Pte, had 'illegally logged rainforests and violated the rights of local communities in Indonesia'.
Boycott over baby milk marketing
As fo January 2010 the long standing Baby Milk Action boycott of Nestlé over its irresponsible marketing of breast milk substitutes was ongoing. Boycotters have long accused Nestlé of harming children through the unethical promotion of infant formula. Nestlé is one of the most boycotted brands in the UK as a result of its activities.
The International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) finds it to be responsible for more violations of the World Health Assembly marketing requirements for baby foods than any other company. It quotes UNICEF "Marketing practices that undermine breastfeeding are potentially hazardous wherever they are pursued: in the developing world, WHO estimates that some 1.5 million children die each year because they are not adequately breastfed. These facts are not in dispute."
Political lobbying (1)
Member of industry association criticised by World Heath Organisation (WHO). International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), of which Nestlé was a member, was barred from setting health standards over concerns that its members had a financial stake in the outcome of setting global standards protecting food and water supplies. According to the article, ILSI had funded WHO research that found no direct link between sugar consumption and obesity, had tried to avoid stronger curbs on toxic pollutants, and tried to discredit a possible link between perfluorochemicals and cancer.
Political lobbying (2)
According to the December 2005 issue of Baby Milk Action Update, in 2005 Nestle had paid for a number of trips for British MPs. This included:
- tickets for Wimbledon to the local MP for the Buxton area, where Nestle's mineral water spring was sited;
- a delegation of MPs paid for by Nestle to go to South Africa to see the company's social and education projects. The MPs sent were said to include a government whip. Nestle was said at the time to be opposing the South African government's attempts to enforce the International Code on the marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes.
- It was also said to be lobbying British MPs in opposition to the proposed Children's Food Bill, which would limit junk food marketing aimed at children.
Political lobbying (3)
According to the organisation's website www.ert.be, viewed by ECRA in January 2007, an executive from Nestle sat on the European Round Table of Industrialists. We consider this to be a high level corporate lobby group which exerted undue corporate influence, to the potential detriment of the environment and human and animal rights.
Tax havens
According to the Nestle Annual Report 2008, downloaded from the company website, www.nestle.com, in April 2009, the company had operations in the following countries: Bahrain, Guatemala, Ireland, Panama, Philippines, Singapore, and Uruguay. All of these countries were on Ethical Consumer's list of tax havens at the time of writing.
Oppressive regimes
According to the Nestle Annual Report 2008, the company had operations in the following countries: Cameroon; China; Cote d'Ivoire; Cuba; Egypt; Guatemala; Indonesia; Iran; Lebanon; Pakistan; Philippines; Russia; Saudi Arabia; Syria; Thailand; United Arab Emirates; United States of America; Uzbekistan; Vietnam and Zimbabwe. All of these countries were on Ethical Consumer's list of oppressive regimes at the time of writing.
Workers rights
According to IUF, the affiliated Nestlé Perm Workers Union demanded a substantial wage increase for the almost 1000 workers at the KitKat factory, but Nestlé Russia continued to deny bona fide wage bargaining.
The union called for international protest action in order to highlight the right to wage negotiations as a basic workers right. Nestlé's offer of a 15% wage increase did not cover the 16% inflation rate and many workers claimed they were regularly forced to sell blood in order to make ends meet.
Tests on animals (1)
The Spring 2009 issue of the Uncaged Campaigns Bulletin stated that vivisectors from Unilever were involved in the 'sacrifice' of 128 rats in a repeat poisoning test for the commonly-used chemical ingredients butylparaben and methylparaben.
The test involved chemicals being administered in the animals' food everyday, plus the taking of blood samples by a method called 'retro-orbital bleeding'. This is an extreme procedure involving the puncturing of the eye socket. According to the article, there was widespread condemnation of this method, even among some animal researchers, indicating the extreme brutality of this test.
The UK National Centre for the 3Rs stated that it was a technique that can have strong consequences for the animal and, therefore, it is not recommended for use with recovery." In other words, because of the devastating injuries caused by retro-orbital bleeding, animals should be put down before they can regain consciousness.
Tests on animals (2)
Unilever was on a list of 'Companies that test on animals' produced by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, because it manufactured personal care and household products that were tested on animals even though it was not required by law.
Lever Faberge, a subsidiary of Unilever, is on the BUAV list of companies that conducted and/or commissioned animal tests for products and/or ingredients. BUAV listed this company's products as follows: Mentadent, Signal, Ponds, Vaseline Intensive Care skin products, Pears shampoo & soap, Sure deodorant, Impulse, Addiction, Sunsilk haircare, Timotei, Organics, Lynx, Brut, Aquatonic, Shield soap/ deodorant / perfume, Lux, Dove, Knights Castile, Salon Selectives, Physio Sport, Lifebuoy, Harmony.
Factory farming
Unilever's UK website said its peperami was spicy pork salami sausage when it was viewed by ECRA in March 2006. The website did not mention free range or organic pork production.
According to a press release by the Humane Society of the United States, dated 23rd August 2006, a campaign had been launched to ask Unilever-owned 'Ben & Jerry's' to stop using eggs sourced from battery chicken farms in its ice-cream. The company was said to have given assurances over the space of a year that it would switch to free range eggs, but to have failed to do so.
Political lobbying (1)
Member of industry association barred from the World Health Organization (WHO). International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), of which Unilever was a member, was barred from setting health standards over concerns that its members had a financial stake in the outcome of setting global standards protecting food and water supplies. According to the article, ILSI had funded WHO research that found no direct link between sugar consumption and obesity, had tried to avoid stronger curbs on toxic pollutants, and tried to discredit a possible link between perfluorochemicals and cancer.
Political lobbying (2)
According to Dirt Diggers Digest from May 2nd, 2008, the U.S Supreme Court had denied an Emergency request from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) regarding disclosure.
NAM had been opposed to a new law (Section 207 of P.L 110-81) that required trade associations to list member companies that were involved extensively in developing the organization's lobbying strategies or that contributed at least $5,000 towards those efforts. NAM maintained that these activities should be confidential.
When NAM submitted an amended lobbying disclosure filing to the Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate it responded to a question about additional affiliated organizations by providing a link to a page on its website which listed 63 large corporations and two large trade associations (American Petroleum Institute and the Edison Electric Institute) whose lobbying involvement was ordered to be made public. Unilever United States was among the companies listed.
GM foods (1)
According to the July / August 2006 edition of the Ecologist, Unilever was set to use a protein taken from fish blood to create the world's first ice creams using GM technology. Unilever claimed this would allow it to develop low-calorie, low-fat ice-cream for its Wall's brand. The blood protein was derived from the eel-like ocean pout fish, which used it to survive extreme cold at the bottom of the sea.
The protein was chemically synthesised and was grown in vast vats to produce a brownish liquid, this was added to ice-cream and lowered the temperature at which ice-crystals form as well as altering the shape it took. Unilever claimed a stiff, solid mixture could be created which held shape without the use of as much fat and cream. An application to use the technology had been lodged with the Food Standards Agency, and Unilever said the technology was already used in the US and other parts of the world. The company claimed that no GM material remained in the final product.
GM foods (2)
In October 2008 Ethical Consumer emailed Unilever and attached a questionnaire that included a question regarding the whether or not the company had a policy on genetic modification. The company responded as follows:
"We support the responsible use of biotechnology within the framework of effective regulatory control and provision of information about its use. The use of this technology to improve food crops can bring important benefits to mankind and individual applications should be judged on their merits.
"We acknowledge that the public’s view of biotechnology, such as the use of GM ingredients in foods, is still evolving and that the debate and public acceptance is at different stages in different regions of the world.
"Our companies are free to use ingredients derived from modified crops, which have been approved by the regulatory authorities and which meet our own standards for quality and acceptability.
The decision whether or not such ingredients will be used is made at local or regional level, taking into account public perception, national legislation, availability and costs of alternatives and attitudes of our customers, including the retail trade."
GM foods (3)
According to the Greenpeace Shoppers Guide to GM, the following products had been given the 'red' rating applied to "food which may contain GM ingredients or be derived from animals fed on GM crops": Pepperami, Ragu white lasagne sauce, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Magnum, Solero, Chicken Tonight reamy Sauces, Minimilk, Bovril, Elmlea, Hellman's mayonaise,and Knorr chicken stock, creamy ham sauce, Hollandaise sauce, and parsley sauce.
Workers' Rights (1)
According to ActionAid's 2005 report 'Power Hungry- six reasons to regulate agrifood corporations,' five transnational corporations (TNCs), including Unilever were complicit in child labour in Andhra Pradesh, India. The publication stated that there were 82,875 children employed on cotton seed farms in the Southern Indian state in 2003-2004- and that 12,375 of the children worked on farms supplying TNCs such as Unilever.
The report claimed that many child workers were under 10 years old, 85% were girls, and they earnt an average daily wage of 14-25 rupees. Many were migrants from low castes who were sold into debt bondage to pay off family loans. The children usually cross-pollinated cotton flowers by hand for up to 13 hours a day, and in the process were exposed to toxic pesticides. They slept communally in small huts and complained of headaches, nausea and convulsions.
ActionAid's report stipulated that Unilever and the other companies, did not employ child labourers themselves, but worked with intermediaries called 'seed organisers' who in turn worked with local farmers. The report claimed that the transnational companies were complicit in the use of child labour because they paid such low procurement prices for cotton seed that it was less viable for farmers to employ adult workers. According to the ActionAid Unilever intended to withdraw from India's cotton seed business in 2005.
Workers' Rights (2)
In a report published in June 2008 entitled "Sustainability Issues in the Tea Sector", Unilever was criticised for the standard of housing it provided for workers living on plantations in Kenya. It was said that houses tended to be overcrowded and "often in a deplorable condition". Their allocation was said to be "riddled with allegations of corruption, tribalism and sexual harassment".
Unilever, in Indonesia, Malawi and Kenya, was stated to employ people on a temporary contract which resulted in them having worse pay and fewer rights, for example, to pensions and access to medical care for their children. Unilever was said to account for more than 70% of Indonesian tea exports, and it was said to be "highly likely" that the company influenced prices in the region. The global concentration of tea buying into a handful of companies was said to have been "influential in keeping world market prices low".
Tax havens
According to the Unilever Annual Report 2009, the company had subsidiaries/operations in the following countries: Andorra, Antigua, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bahrain, Brunei, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Dominica, Grenada, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Ireland, Liberia, Luxembourg, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Monaco, Netherlands Antilles, Panama, Philippines, Samoa, San Marino, Seychelles, Singapore, St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Tonga, Uruguay and Vanuatu all of which were on ECRA's list of corporate tax havens at the time of writing.
Oppressive regimes
According to the Unilever's Annual Reports and Accounts 2009, the company owned companies in the following countries: China, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand and the USA.
It also had revenues from its own operations or through agency agreements in the following countries: Belarus, Burundi, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Cuba, Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Guatemala, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikstan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
All these countries were considered by Ethical Consumer to be oppressive regimes at the time of writing.
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