2Sustain

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.

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