2Sustain

Last month, Shaw’s Supermarkets launched an aggressive sustainable seafood program and announced that it is now the first New England-based retailer with fresh case products certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

Shaw’s says it developed the new sustainable seafood sourcing program in close collaboration with the MSC, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI) and North Coast Seafood – the company’s single seafood supplier.

Initially, the MSC-certified product offerings will include wild sockeye salmon, wild king salmon, wild Coho salmon, wild Alaskan halibut, pacific frozen at sea cod, Canadian frozen at sea flounder, Icelandic fresh haddock and Canadian fresh haddock.

The Gulf of Maine Responsibly Harvested products will include lobster, northern shrimp, cod, haddock, sea scallops and pollock.

Additional fresh seafood items will be added as the program expands over time.

Concerns about global fish stocks have prompted several companies in the food sector to adopt sustainable seafood policies. (See earlier posts about Walmart Canada, Costco, Kroger and others.) (more…)

Earlier this month, Publix Super Markets announced that, since mid-2007, the company has saved more than 1 billion paper and plastic bags.

How? Through a variety of initiatives that include employees, customers and the general public. Over the past few years, Publix has launched a multi-faceted program to specifically reduce the use of paper and plastic grocery bags used at checkout. For instance, the company: (more…)

Earlier this week, Greenpeace upped the ante in its sustainable seafood campaign by explicitly targeting Costco with a press release and a less-than-flattering YouTube video.

Greenpeace, which has published a sustainable seafood guide since 2008 (see an earlier post here), says Costco lacks a transparent and meaningful sustainable seafood policy and has continually proven to be one of the poorest performing big box stores in the United States in terms of seafood sustainability. (more…)

A new report, released today by London-based campaign group the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), reveals that only two percent of all major supermarket retail stores throughout the UK are using HFC-free refrigeration systems, despite awareness of the enormous environmental damage caused by HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons).

HFCs, originally introduced to reduce ozone-depleting CFCs, are now known to have a global warming impact 3,800 times greater than CO2.

Natural refrigerant alternatives are available, and some companies (see earlier post about Coca-Cola here) are already transitioning to eco-friendly cooling technologies. The EIA, however, would like to see UK supermarkets moving faster towards HFC-free refrigeration. (more…)

For years now, researchers have been warning about the collapse of our marine ecosystems. In particular, global fish populations are declining, and as startling as it sounds, by some estimates, we’ve already pushed as much as 75% of the world's fisheries beyond the limits of sustainability.

In the U.S., consumers buy half of their seafood at supermarkets –ringing in a total of about $16 billion in annual seafood sales –and so, a few years ago, Greenpeace initiated a scorecard that ranks supermarkets on the sustainability of their seafood operations. The third edition of this seafood sustainability scorecard, titled “Carting Away the Oceans,” was released this week, and it contains a glimmer of good news: more than half of the leading supermarket chains in the U.S. have made at least some progress in helping the oceans and meeting meet consumer demand for sustainable products.

(more…)