Greenpeace is targeting Coca-Cola in its latest campaign, a crowd-funded TV ad that is a call-to-action for Australia’s "Cash for Containers" recycling program, which they say the giant bottler has sabotaged. “Behind Coke’s slogans and sunshine, the beverage giant is trashing Australia,” said Reece Turner, senior campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific. 

In March, Coca-Cola won its court case to stop a recycling refund scheme in the Northern Territory—a program that doubled recycling rates and has run successfully in South Australia for more than 30 years, according to Greenpeace. The program added 10 cents to retail prices for manufacturers like Coke, but consumers would get a refund for recycling the containers in appropriate bins. 

Clean Up Australia estimates that Australians use between 13 to 14 billion drinks containers a year and that 45 percent of the plastic waste that is collected on Clean Up Australia Day is beverage industry-related. “This loose rubbish is estimated to affect up to 65 percent of Australian seabirds. Some mistake the plastic for food. When they swallow too much, their tiny stomachs become so full they're unable to ingest any food—literally starving to death on a full stomach,” according to Greenpeace.Continue reading...

As many high-end brands show off their latest designs at New York Fashion Week, Greenpeace has a big message for the fashion world at large: It's time to clean up your act.

The latest from Greenpeace’s global Detox campaign is its “Fashion Duel,” with Italian actress Valeria Golino leading the charge for the industry to make environmental stewardship a priority in their operations.

The "duel" sets out to rate 15 Italian and French high-end luxury brands on three areas of the global supply chain — leather, pulp and paper and toxic water pollution — and highlights their differences in policy on toxic water pollution and deforestation.Continue reading...

Nicer bras for masectomy survivors. Healthier ingredients in soft drinks. Halting gender stereotypes in toys.

All are among the causes and quests that have gained momentum — and in many cases, acquired success — through Change.org, which has quickly become a major force to be reckoned with among brands. While activist organizations such as Greenpeace lobby companies and others around a particular set of issues, Change.org is an open platform to agitate for action.

PepsiCo, for instance, recently announced the removal of brominated vegetable oil, which is used as a flame retardant, from its Gatorade drink after 16-year old Sarah Kavanagh’s Change.org petition garnered more than 200,000 digital signatures. (The company is continuing to use it in Mountain Dew.)

"When I went to Change.org to start my petition, I thought it might get a lot of support because no one wants to gulp down flame retardant, especially from a drink they associate with being healthy," Kavanagh said on The Dr. Oz Show. "With Gatorade being as big as they are, sometimes it was hard to know if we'd ever win.”Continue reading...

Limited Brands, owner of Victoria’s Secret and La Senza, has committed to eliminate hazardous chemicals from its global supply chain in response to Greenpeace's Detox campaign. An investigation in 2012 by the environmental advocacy organization revealed a hormone-disrupting phthalate in underwear sold in Victoria’s Secret stores in the United States.

Phthalates and perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) are man-made chemicals that contain non-stick and water-repellent properties. The chemicals can affect the liver, disrupt hormones and alter growth.

"With Limited Brands being the 14th company to Detox since Greenpeace launched its campaign, the fashion industry is finally waking up to its responsibilities in the cycle of toxic water pollution," John Deans, Greenpeace USA Toxics Campaigner, told brandchannel. "Now it's time for brands like Calvin Klein, G Star Raw and The Gap to take their place alongside these Detox leaders."Continue reading...

Greenpeace has added Uniqlo to its list of global fashion brands and retailers signing its Detox pledge, making "a public commitment to eliminate all releases of hazardous chemicals throughout its entire global supply chain and products by 2020."

The commitment covers all Fast Retailing-owned brands — Uniqlo, Comptoir des Cotonniers, Princesse TamTam, GU and Theory — which together operate more than 2,000 stores. "Uniqlo recognises clean water as a critical global issue, and is proud to join Greenpeace in its campaign to eliminate hazardous chemical use," stated Yukihiro Nitta, Fast Retailing's executive in charge of social responsibility. The company also vowed to disclose discharge data from at least 80% of its global suppliers (including all their facilities) by the end of this year.  

As the environmental group blogged, the Uniqlo deal "comes just a month after Zara, Mango, Esprit and Levi's announced similar individual commitments, responding to waves of pressure from activists and consumers around the world. Competitors in the fashion world including GAP, G-Star Raw and Calvin Klein are looking increasingly out of touch now that 12 of the world's top high street fashion brands have committed to Detox." Other Detox signatories include Adidas, C&A, H&M, Nike, Puma and M&S.

Following in the wake of Zara's capitulation, Levi’s is now the 11th brand to bow to pressure from Greenpeace's global Detox campaign. The denim giant has committed to eliminate releases of all hazardous chemicals throughout its supply chains and products. Still being pressured: Calvin Klein, Gap, and Victoria’s Secret as part of the green campaigner's goal “to expose brands until the use - and abuse - of hazardous substances is totally eliminated.” 

The world’s largest denim brand, has agreed to eliminate all releases of hazardous chemicals throughout its entire supply chain and products by 2020. The commitment comes eight days after Greenpeace launched its “Toxic Threads: Under Wraps” report targeting global fashion brands releasing toxins in Mexico's rivers, resulting in a digital groundswell with more than 210,000 people calling on Levi’s to Detox, tens of thousands taking action on Facebook and Twitter, and over 700 people protesting outside Levi’s shop fronts in over 80 cities worldwide.

As part of its Zero Discharge Commitment, Levi’s (as outlined in a blog post) will start requiring 15 of its largest suppliers in China, Mexico and elsewhere in the Global South to disclose pollution data as early as June 2013, followed by compliance from 25 additional major suppliers by the end of 2013.Continue reading...

Having taken Zara to task as part of its Detox/Toxic Threads campaign, Greenpeace is now turning the spotlight on the Levi’s brand.

This week, the eco-activists rolled out a multimedia campaign that included bringing 16 living mannequins to stage a protest outside the brand’s flagship store in San Francisco. Their demand: that the world’s largest maker of jeans (with sales of $4.8 billion in 2011) eliminate hazardous chemicals from their supply chain. The tactics: turning the denim giant's global Go Forth "marketing platform"— which was inspired by Walt Whitman's "O Pioneers" poem — against the brand.

Campaigners are using the language of "Go Forth" against the brand. Greenpeace is mimicking its graphic style and hashtag (#goforth) with its own #detox tag for a "#GoForth and #Detox!" message. The platform's "This is our time" tagline has turned into "Now is Your Time," in addition to co-opting other Levi's brand attributes (see the Pinterest/Facebook-ready "501 reasons to detox" infographic, below) to encourage the company to live up to its high-minded, noble mesaging.

Levi's is listening.Continue reading...

Greenpeace is doing battle against the fashion world. In the past week, it organized more than 700 volunteers in more than 80 cities in 20 countries to dress up like mannequins and stage “walkouts” of Zara stores as a protest against the company for using any hazardous chemicals in its supply chain.

The “Detox Zara” campaign has spread to include all of fashion; the eco-campaigner's latest video, above, is a manga style trailer called "Detox Fashion" (tagline: "Toxic is so last season.")

The campaign has worked, according to Greenpeace's Tristan Tremschnig: "Zara — the world’s largest retailer — has now committed to clean up their supply chain and Detox following 9 days of intensive pressure from people around the world. This included over 320,000 people joining the campaign online, over 44,000 mentions of Zara and the Detox campaign on Twitter alone, and a reach of over 7.1 million people across Twitter and Weibo. Not forgetting our activities on Facebook, Pinterest and outside the brand’s stores."Continue reading...