Enough greenwashing, its time to act, Greenpeace tells HCL

Press release - August 30, 2007 NEW DELHI, India Greenpeace activists today staged a shame-HCL protest at the companys headquarters in Noida, demanding that the company make clear and binding commitments to green its operations. Unfurling a banner that read Hazardous Chemicals unLimited, Greenpeace activists occupied the roof of the security hut and refused to move until the company accepted its demands to end the use of hazardous chemicals in its products and accept responsibility for its end-of-life products.

zoom Greenpeace activists protest at HCLs headquarters in Noida against the companys greenwashing and failure to make clear commitments on the phase out of hazardous chemicals from its computers. Greenpeace criticised HCL's position on hazardous chemical phaseout, recently announced on its website (1), as misleading 'greenwash'. HCL has talked about "striving" to phase out PVC and BFRs, once "economically viable technical solutions" exist. "Greenpeace is reminding HCL, the Indian market leader, that they cannot evade responsibility by voicing vague aspirations, with no clear time commitments (1). They must have a time-bound, operational road map, with binding commitments, to phase out all toxics and implement a free and easy take back system," said Pranav Sinha, Greenpeace Toxics Campaigner. "The solutions already exist! If global electronics leaders can move in less than a year to free their products of toxics and implement take back programmes, what is holding HCL back? Are they unable to compete at the highest level?" Sinha queried. The presence of harmful chemicals in electronic products and computers, including those sold by HCL, is confronting India with an environmental nightmare. Greenpeace has discovered scientific evidence of worker and community exposure to toxic chemicals from e-waste (3) (4). Going by government estimates, it would be possible to postulate that HCL, via its desktop sales, might have distributed several million kilos of plastics and electronic components that could contain PVC, lead and BFRs (2). These are potent toxins that can cause severe health problems, and some have been phased out in most countries through legislation such as RoHS (5). "If HCL does not want to be seen as a major contributor to the e-waste crisis, it must not only take urgent steps to clean its products of all hazardous substances, but also lead India's IT brigade by

setting practical and transparent systems of take back and recycling of end of life products, with clear financial brand responsibility (6)", continued Sinha. Most global companies are now marketing products free of some of the worst chemicals, while designing even cleaner products for the future. Some Sony Vaio laptops already have Printed Circuit Boards that are totally BFR free. Panasonic, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola also have electronic products that are completely PVC free. By confronting HCL, Greenpeace is issuing a warning to all other Indian and global electronics companies on their practices in India. Greenpeace wants clear evidence that there are no double standards in India with respect to RoHS compliance and global commitments on hazardous substance phase out and on take back policies. "In the total absence of any Indian e-waste legislation, our country will continue to be inundated with products containing hazardous substances. A level playing field can be ensured only when Indian IT majors like HCL proactively engage the government to first implement a mandatory RoHS-like measure in India, and then implement legislation based on the concept of Individual Producer Responsibility", reiterated Pranav Sinha.

Coke Faces New Charges in India, Including 'Greenwashing'

Posted in

Corporations Aaron Glantz OneWorld US, LOS ANGELES, Jun 6, 2007 - The Coca-Cola company has been charged with illegally seizing lands communally owned by small farmers and indiscriminately dumping sludge and other industrial hazardous waste onto the surrounding community. This comes as the multinational beverage giant announced a new effort Tuesday to protect rivers on four continents. The San Francisco-based India Resource Center, an environmental health non-profit, further charged Coca-Cola with releasing untreated wastewater into surrounding agricultural fields and a canal that feeds into the Ganges River in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The charges are based on the results of a fact-finding mission led by the group to a Coca-Cola bottling plant in the region. "Access to potable water is a fundamental human right," said Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center.

"The Coca-Cola company must acknowledge that it is part of the problem of water unsustainability in India and elsewhere," he added. This is not the first time environmental groups have criticized Coke's operations in India. In 2003, in response to a growing campaign against Coca-Cola, the Central Pollution Control Board of India surveyed eight Coca-Cola bottling plants in the country and tested the sludge at all these facilities. The Board found all the sludge at all the Coca-Cola bottling plants it surveyed contained high levels of toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium, and chromium. At the time, it ordered the Coca-Cola company to treat its sludge as industrial hazardous waste. Those toxic problems, coupled with allegations Coke has been complicit in the murders of union organizers at bottling plants in the South American nation of Colombia, have been increasingly troublesome to the Atlanta-based company. In the last six months, 25 universities from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, including the University of Michigan, the University of Guelph in Canada, and the University of Manchester in England, have all taken actions to remove Coca-Cola from their campuses. On May 29, the president of Smith College in Massachusetts, Carol T. Christ, barred Coke from participating in the school's upcoming soft drink bidding process. Coca-Cola's seven-year contract with Smith College expires on August 31. "In light of Coca-Cola's business practices in Colombia and India, Smith will preclude Coca-Cola from the list of approved bidders when we enter the contract renewal process later this summer," Christ wrote in a letter. Coke vehemently denies the charges. "The allegations that led to this decision are based on Internet rumor and myth, and have been proven false time and again," Coke spokesperson Diana Garza Ciarlante told New Dehli-based Indo-Asian News Service. "While our business relationship with Smith College is important, the integrity and reputation of our company is more important," she said. On Tuesday, the soft drink giant announced its own environmental plan, pledging to spend $20 million to conserve seven of the world's most critical river basins.

Right now, it takes 2.5 liters of water to make and bottle 1 liter of Coke, and 250 liters to grow the sugar cane in the mix. The pledge was announced at the annual meeting of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Beijing. Over the life of a multiyear partnership with WWF, the company pledged to focus on "measurably conserving" China's Yangtze, Southeast Asia's Mekong, the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo of the southwest United States and Mexico, the rivers and streams of the southeastern United States, the water basins of the Mesoamerican Caribbean Reef, the East Africa basin of Lake Malawi, and Europe's Danube River. "We call this 'greenwashing,'" said Srivastava of the India Resource Center. "An attempt by the Coca-Cola company to manufacture a green image of itself that it clearly is not, as their practice in India shows." Coke's announcement did not mention any measures to conserve water basins in India, a decision that did not surprise Srivastava. "The Coca-Cola company and WWF did not dare to include India in this initiative (because) the public in India is increasingly becoming aware of the Coca-Cola company's disastrous relationship with water, and would have to see it for what it's worth -- a drop in the bucket," he told OneWorld. The deal also rubs U.S. critics of Coke the wrong way. "In itself it's a good thing, but we see it as largely a tactic to divert attention from other areas," Patti Lynn of the watchdog group Corporate Accountability told OneWorld. "Coke is just trying to get some public relations points. They're using this as a diversionary tactic," she added. Lynn and other U.S.-based consumer advocates are angry because of the foray that Coca-Cola has made into the bottled water market. From the 1970s to 2000, Corporate Accountability says, the annual volume of bottled water purchased and sold in the United States has increased by over 7,000 percent. Yet the bottled water industry operates with little or no regulation. "Tap water is better regulated, and often safer," said Lynn, adding that bottled water costs 3,000 percent more.

Lynn pointed to a 1999 study by the National Resources Defense Council on bottled water sold in the United States, which found traces of arsenic, chloroform, and other impurities; chemicals that would be illegal if found in tap water. Coca-Cola spent $1.7 billion on advertising last year. In North America, Coca-Cola distributes three bottled water brands: Dasani, Dannon, and Evian. According to the Washington, DC-based Earth Policy Institute, consumers spend about $100 billion on bottled water each year. By comparison, experts estimate that just $15 billion per year, above and beyond what is already spent, could bring reliable and lasting access to safe drinking water to half a billion people worldwide -- fully half of those who lack it. "The way that Coke, Pepsi, and Nestle have marketed bottled water has had the effect of undermining people's confidence in tap water and contributed to a broad societal shift," Lynn said. "Instead of buying bottled water, we need to be investing in our shared, public water systems."

Coca-Cola, Others Charged With Greenwash at Protest

Water Rights Conference and Protest Highlights Corporate Abuse of Water For Immediate Release December 3, 2008 Contact: Amit Srivastava, India Resource Center +1 415 336 7584 San Francisco (December 3, 2008) - The Coca-Cola company and other water companies including Pepsico and Nestle Waters were challenged in San Francisco by a broad coalition of groups, charging the companies with greenwashing and abusing water resources.

The water companies were in San Francisco for a meeting entitled "Corporate Water Footprintin g: Towards a Sustainable Water Strategy" on December 2 and 3, Corporate Water Footprint 2008 to ostensibly outline water conservation strategies. The coalition held a Water Rights conference to a capacity-filled venue on December 2nd as well as a protest, including street theater, at the corporate conference venue today. "A conference geared towards sustainable use of water is indeed welcome, but having the largest water abusers in charge is not," said Maude Barlow, chairwoman of the Council of Canadians and Senior Water Advisor to the United Nations. "More than a billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and climate change is further depleting freshwater resources," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. "Given the absence of perspectives from those without access to water, the corporate conference appears aimed more at polishing the images of some of the world's biggest water abusers rather than addressing the very real global water crisis." "Providing access to water cannot be ensured through privatization and must not be subject to the whims of the market. Over 3 billion people live on less than US $2.50 a day and the commodification of water literally means that a substantial part of the world - particularly the poor and the marginalized will be unable to afford water," said Amit Srivastava of the International Campaign Against Coca-Cola and the India Resource Center. Coca-Cola's role in the corporate conference, in particular, was harshly criticized because of the company's announcement to become "water neutral".

"Coca-Cola's own concept paper on water neutrality states that the term is misleading and troublesome because it is impossible to become water neutral. Yet the company has decided that that the term makes for good marketing and is pushing it, regardless of the fact that the company continues to destroy water resources for tens of thousand of people in India," said Srivastava. The Coca-Cola company is the target of community-led Mark Franco from Winnemem Wintu Tribe Making His Case Against Water campaigns across India for Abusers denying access to water, and two Coca-Cola bottling plants have been shut down as a result. The Coca-Cola company has responded by increasing its advertising budget and increasing its "corporate social responsibility" initiatives, of which water neutrality is a part. Also speaking at the conference were Mark Franco from the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and Mateo Nube from Movement Generation. Primary organizers of the conference included the Blue Planet Project, Council of Canadians, Food & Water Watch, India Resource Center, Indigenous Environmental Network and International Campaign Against Coca-Cola.