Wallet Mouth

Valentine’s Day preparedness, Part 1: flowers whose ethics don’t stink

What could be more romantic than a dozen roses on February 14th?

Unfortunately, that bouquet starts to smell less sweet when you consider that it was most likely grown using toxic pesticides and handled by workers who probably weren’t given adequate protection against those chemicals. Oh, and those employees could easily have been children, or women illegally required to take a pregnancy test every month (and fired if they get a positive result).

The vast majority of flowers we Americans send our sweeties on Valentine’s Day are imported from Colombia and Ecuador, where it’s common for farms engage in the less-than-fragrant practices mentioned above, plus others. (For more info, check out the International Labor Rights Forum’s Fairness in Flowers campaign. While you’re there, sign the petition telling Dole to stop union-busting at flower farm Fragrancia—the link is in the third sidebar on the right.)

Only within the past couple of years have I been made aware of these ethical considerations. Many people, I think, have no idea. And the biggest U.S. company in the cut-flower industry, FTD, isn’t helping.

If you visit FTD.com, you’ll see that it does have an  “Eco-Friendly” product category. But it looks like nothing more than greenwashing to me. Emblazoned across the webpage is a logo that features a recycling logo and the words “Go Green Living,” along with this meaningless copy:

In an effort to embrace the ever-changing needs of our consumer and our society, FTD proudly presents “Go Green Living.” A movement that is making us aware of the way we have and continue to effect our planet, we recognize the need for natural, fresh, sustainable or organic products to be made available to our customers. Send these stunning bouquets, gourmet treats and gorgeous gifts to not only delight your recipient, but make a statement about the importance of protecting the beautiful earth we inhabit.

I called FTD to ask what, if anything, the Go Green Living designation means. Under what conditions are Go Green flowers grown? Are there publicly available standards I can read? Is this a certification program?

“They are certified sustainable,” the customer-service rep I spoke with said.

“By whom?” I asked.

“Um... [keyboard sounds] It doesn’t say by who,” she replied. “I believe Go Green is a service provided by FTD.”

“But you guys are the ones selling the flowers,” I pointed out. “Of course you’re going to say they’re sustainable.” For a certification system to have any teeth, I added, it has to be operated by an independent party.

The sad thing is that North America does have a highly regarded certification system for sustainable flowers, and I’m sure that FTD’s executives know this. It’s called VeriFlora. Its website discusses its criteria (which span environmental and social responsibility categories), and it’s managed by Scientific Certification Systems, a certification company that specializes in audits across a number of industries.

According to an interesting article on ethical flowers in the new issue of Plenty magazine, about 30 percent of the stems sold by Canada’s largest floral distributor, Sierra Flower Trading, are VeriFlora-certified. Why is FTD lagging?

I told the customer-service rep that I and countless other consumers would love to see FTD offer VeriFlora bouquets. She promised she’d put a recommendation into the company’s system. While you’re at it, tell them to get rid of that Go Green Living nonsense, I added.

So where is a conscious consumer to go for flowers? Here are some options:

Organic Bouquet (the flower arm of eco-boutique Organic Style) has some VeriFlora offerings; a search on the term yielded 43 results.

Even more selection might be found at California Organic Flowers, which sells stems grown in the Golden State that are certified as organic by both the USDA and the more stringent California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF).

Diamond Organics’ floral offerings are also mostly from California, and a company rep told me the flowers are definitely USDA-certified and probably also CCOF-certified organic.

Meanwhile, Flowerbud.com has 22 VeriFlora bouquets, though strangely it doesn’t trumpet that fact very loudly.

Lastly, mainstream 1800flowers.com sells one lonely fair-trade rose bouquet, certified by TransFair USA.

Grocery bag saves the world!

I never thought that I would be in possession of the key to saving the earth, but look!

Can you read that last line? “This is a recyclable bag that will reduce greenhouse gases and save our planet” (emphasis mine). I don’t even know where the salvation-bringing sack came from, but I’d better take care of it so that it can work its planet-saving juju before we run out of time...

Speaking of greenwashing, if you encounter an advertisement that makes unfounded environmental claims, put it on the hot seat by posting it to EnviroMedia’s new Greenwashing Index. You can also spotlight and commend ads that don’t succumb to hyperbole. The site lists five criteria for rating how useful or misleading ad copy is, and registered users can chime in with their own ratings for ads that other people have posted. It’s also worth checking out the News and Commentary links.

Pondering Anita Roddick’s legacy

I don’t think I’ve ever bought anything from the Body Shop. In fact, I remember being turned off by the overpowering fog of fragrance that emanated from the first location of the store that I noticed.

But I recall being impressed by reports I’d hear over the years about the environmental and social consciousness of Body Shop founder Dame Anita Roddick, who died yesterday after suffering a brain hemorrhage, and how she sought to have the company reflect and embody her ideals. (Roddick championed rainforests, opposed animal testing, crusaded for the rights of indigenous peoples and initiated trade agreements with them ... the list goes on.)

The company has also seen its share of denouncements, with critics arguing that it has not lived up to its stated ethics (one such critic, Jon Entine, has published a number of articles on the subject).

Last year, the Body Shop’s sale to cosmetics powerhouse L’Oréal—which uses animal testing and one-quarter of which is owned by corporate persona non grata Nestlé—heralded a drop in popularity for the company and prompted boycott calls. Ethiscore gives the Body Shop a “very poor” rating of 4.5 out of 20, citing the retailer’s “profiteering from pollution” and its use of potentially harmful chemicals and ingredients tested on animals.

Still, reading Roddick’s obits today, I couldn’t help but feel inspired by her life and work. She was clearly a passionate woman who genuinely cared about the causes she publicized; she was blogging about one of those causes, the situation of the American prisoners known as the Angola Three, on her site as recently as five days ago.

Whether or not the Body Shop ultimately betrayed its ideals, Dame Anita Roddick was a pioneer who succeeded in getting the notion that businesses can be ethical as well as profitable on much of the world’s radar. She helped create the conditions and momentum for much of the fine work being done today in the realm of responsible consumerism. And for that, I am thankful.

Muddy waters make for dirty shoes

Last month I blogged about trying to get info from shoemaker Earth about its factories in China (link).

Why would a company with such a progressive image, I wondered, not be happy to verify its glowing assertions about the safety and labor-friendliness of its overseas contractors by having those operations inspected by one of the many third-party certifying organizations that exist for this precise purpose?

Why, in short, should consumers trust any corporation to effectively police itself?

(Since my original post, I’ve learned that problems still exist even when such certifiers are used, but I remain convinced that auditing is the best way to go.)

Five and a half weeks after my inquiry (which went unanswered, so I sent two more emails and left one phone message), Earth customer service finally responded. After disingenuously claiming to have received only my first email (I know that at least one of my later messages went through, because I got an out-of-office reply), the representative wrote:

We do not have specific answers for these questions, and I’d rather not open up the conversation.

We hold our facilities in China to the utmost standard both environmentally and socially. Our shoes are manufactured in a controlled, clean, and safe environment that is inspected, not only by our top executives, but also by larger US corporations. Our factory and offices are cleaner than most US plant and our workers are living and eating far above Chinese standards. Ten years ago, our workers were walking or pushing used bicycles to go to work, today several of them have their own cars. In short, US companies are pushing the envelope and raising up the bar for a better living and better environment. Thanks to companies like us, we influence changes and improve people’s life. I hope this information helps.

A few thoughts that might get Earth more grounded:

1. If you don’t want to have a conversation about these issues, you shouldn’t use them as a marketing ploy.

2. You can’t make claims about something that consumers care about and that has an effect in the world and then refuse to back them up.

3. Cutting-and-pasting unverifiable cherry-picked anecdotes does not reassure informed customers asking crucial questions. Rather, it insults them, invites claims of greenwashing (etc.), and pisses them off.

I followed up (politely) asking what “larger US corporations” means. What type of corporations? Fellow shoe manufacturers, perchance?

Evidence suggests I should hear back, oh, maybe by the end of September.

Amuse-bouche: Food fraud

With the rise in popularity of origin-protected and organic comestibles, food fraud has become big business. The European Union is fighting back with a host of new technologies. Link.

Bull in the China shops

Concerns about sweatshops and ethical-labor practices have been on the contemporary public radar ever since the early to mid-1990s, when the Kathi Lee Gifford child-labor fiasco and other scandals erupted in the mainstream media.

I’ve been learning as much as I can about these issues recently, and I was excited to discover the existence of auditing organizations such as the Institute for Marketecology, Social Accountability International, and Verité that conduct independent inspections of factories and other types of production facilities to ascertain whether certain codes of conduct are being met. If the facility passes muster, it gets a certified stamp of approval.

What a great idea: a way for consumers to ensure that they’re not subsidizing exploitative business practices, and for responsible corporations to put their money where their mouths are. I’ve even started pestering companies to encourage them to take part in such certification programs.

So imagine my dismay when I came across this Business Week article about Chinese factories that deceive auditors in order to be certified. It’s well worth reading in its entirety, but the gist is that nowadays it’s commonplace for factories in China to maintain extra sets of books containing falsified records, and to distribute scripts for workers to recite if they are questioned by inspectors. Not only that, but “a new breed of Chinese consultant has sprung up to assist companies … in evading audits,” the article states.

Pretty depressing, huh? But not entirely surprising.

I’m still digesting the contents of this article, but a few thoughts come to mind. One is that, as much as I sometimes enjoy heaping scorn on big business and calling large companies “evil,” it’s not always as black-and-white as that. After all, big players such as Disney, Nike, and Wal-Mart regularly use auditing organizations, and the large-scale pressure these companies provide has undoubtedly helped check some of the worst abuses. The system is certainly imperfect, but at least these institutions are in place; that’s the first step to meaningful reform.

Another thought is just how much, for me, China represents so many of the complexities, contradictions, and shortcomings of the global economy. I’ll no doubt be thinking about that tonight when I see Manufactured Landscapes, a new documentary about Edward Burtynsky, whose awe-inspiring photographs capture just how massive industry in China is.

Nonprofit nails tuna companies with fishy practices

Have you ever bought Dolores brand canned tuna? If so, you may have unwittingly subsidized dolphin-killing fishing practices. Not that you would have known, because the product would have had a “Dolphin Safe” label on it.

An article in the latest issue of Earth Island Journal details a case of illegal non-dolphin-safe tuna importation and fake labeling on the part of PINSA, Mexico’s largest tuna processor. Cans of the fish ended up on the shelves of supermarket chain Food Lion.

Thankfully, this story has a happy ending. A complaint from the International Marine Mammal Project, an Earth Island Institute project, resulted in the seizure of a truckload of the tuna at the U.S.-Mexican border and a fine to the importing company. Food Lion has stopped selling Dolores tuna and renewed its pledge to buy only dolphin-safe tuna.

The same article describes a similar case in which IMMP monitors found that one of the 382 companies participating in the organization’s Dolphin Safe program was buying tuna from a fleet that didn’t comply with program standards. After an ample warning period, Asiservy cannery was removed from IMMP’s list of dolphin-safe tuna companies. Major importing associations have been advised of its delisting and are expected to stop purchasing the tuna.

It’s a good reminder of the important role nonprofits play in the realm of consumer activism.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

A few years ago, I decided to stop buying leather shoes. After all, I reasoned, I’m a vegetarian (well, actually, a “fishetarian,” since I do occasionally eat fish), and it would be inconsistent to reject beef but still buy leather products. So, on a trip to New York a couple years ago, I went on a minor shopping spree at Moo Shoes and purchased several vegan pairs, among them, a pair of black Mary Janes made by the Earth shoe company.

Fast-forward to this week, when I came across this long but interesting blog post highlighting the contradiction between the vegan ethos of nonexploitation and the fact that most shoes, leather-free or not, are made in Asian factories whose labor standards are waaaaay lax compared with those of the first world. Granted, many of the employees in those factories are no doubt thankful for their jobs, but their working conditions would probably give many Western consumers pause.

The post also makes several criticisms of Earth, including the fact that the interiors of the company’s shoes feature the image of the American flag—which I actually remember seeing in the store and thinking, “Oh, cool, these were made domestically”—but with the words “Designed in USA” in very small type under Old Glory. At that point I had to stop reading and grab my shoes to see for myself. Yup. Not made in U.S.A. Designed in U.S.A. Pretty cheeky, huh?

And also somewhat bizarre, given that the Our Company page of Earth’s website is very up front about the fact that its shoes are made in China. It even casts that as a good thing, because it means better value for the consumer. As for labor conditions in the factories, “Family members and executives go there frequently to watch operations and working conditions.... The factory and offices are up to par with many US plants, and our workers enjoy a lifestyle above Asian standards.... In short, Earth, and other US companies operating in China’s special industrial zones, have created a new life for Chinese workers. We are pushing the envelope and raising the bar; fighting for better living and a better environment. We have and will continue to influence changes to improve people’s quality of life everywhere on Earth.”

As I read those words, I could feel my skepticism hackles raising. From what I’ve read about these special manufacturing zones, they represent a complicated web of contractors, subcontractors, and go-betweens. Orders can float from factory to factory, and oftentimes companies don't even know which facility is making their goods.

Luckily, there is another way: third-party certifiers such as Social Accountability International and Verité, which work with companies to ensure that the workers producing their goods are treated ethically.

So here’s the message I emailed to Earth a couple days ago (no response yet; I’ll let you know if/when I hear back):

Hi there,

I was just reading the Our Company page on your site, and my interest was piqued by your words on China. You say, “Family members and executives go there frequently to watch operations and working conditions.”

Here’s the thing, though. These days, companies are falling all over themselves to make claims about how green and socially responsible they are. Consequently, there’s a lot of greenwashing going on. The smart consumer doesn’t simply believe everything she hears or reads.

For a company’s CSR claims to be worth anything, it’s important for them to be backed up. So I was wondering if Earth is considering using the services of an independent third-party certifier, such as Social Accountability International’s Corporate Programs, or Verite, which New Balance uses. If not, why not?

I was also curious about the environmental impact of Earth’s shoes. You say that you are an environmentally responsible company, but are your shoes manufactured in an eco-friendly way? I can’t seem to find any information about this on your site, and factories in China are famous for how polluting they are. Do you have any oversight in this regard?

Sincerely,

Bronwyn Ximm

I encourage any readers out there to send similar notes to companies whose products they are concerned about. Let me know what comes of it!

Invisible bedfellows

Speaking of Gaiam, while shopping there, I noticed that none of its bedding product descriptions included a brand name. Which is less than shocking, given that things like comforters and sheets belong to that humongous class of objects whose faceless manufacturers bear no relation to whatever brand ultimately gets slapped onto them.

But since the site presents itself in such a green light, I wondered what Gaiam could tell me about where its bedding products come from. The answer is, not a lot. The friendly customer-service rep I got on the phone said that manufacturer names are not shared, lest the competition find out.

So, did he have any idea where, say, Gaiam’s organic cotton sheets were manufactured? “Some are made in India,” he said. “None are made in China, I believe.” Hmm. OK. And were they made in an environmentally sustainable way? “Yes. All organic cotton has to be. You can’t have an organic cotton label if pesticides were used.”

What about working conditions? “Well, that’s one of the most difficult areas to track down,” he said. “We try to participate in the global marketplace in a responsible way, but it’s really hard to know these things. You kind of have to take companies at their word, unless you go there.”

Understandable, but it still sucks.

Keep in mind, he added, that we’re still in the beginning stages of this new emerging global economy, and more and more consumers are starting to demand sustainably produced goods. “As demand picks up, even companies that are lying [about their practices] will be forced to be accountable.”

All right, then. Let’s pick up the pace.