18 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2022
  2. Jun 2021
  3. Mar 2019
    1. “We still have many untapped opportunities to keep developing our markets, bring purpose into all of our brands, and that will translate into more opportunities for growth right across our considerable geographic footprint.”​Jope stressed the need to deliver “quality”​ growth that is consistent, competitive, profitable and responsible.“To have consistent growth, we need to use the breadth of our portfolio to avoid or minimize the impact of onetime shocks. Competitive growth is simple, growing ahead of our markets. Profitable growth is going to require that we get the right balance of price and volume mix in any period as well as keep delivering strong savings and efficiency programs.​“And finally, our growth will, of course, be responsible, which means putting purposes into our brands and making continued progress on the ambitious environmental and social roles that we set out in the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.​“It is not purpose ahead of profits. It's purpose that drives better profits.”​

      Again, an article that presents the conflicting nature of a purpose brand. This clearly states the new CEO of Unilver is going to put profit first. This is my last annotation. Overall, I would say that I still find the 50 foods campaign reliable. If you look at it simply as an informative document I think it is accurate, and a good publication However I think it is worth it to understand the authors as well. Unilever is not a perfect company, nor is WWF. Far from it. I hope that we can support this 50 foods campaign and other good choices while still holding Knorr Unilever and WWF accountable for their contradictions, hypocrisy, corruption, and bad choices.

    1. “Unilever believes that complete transparency is needed for radical transformation,” Engel said in a statement posted on Unilever’s website. Advertisement“This is a big step toward greater transparency, but we know there is more work to be done to achieve a truly sustainable palm oil industry and we will continue our efforts to make this a reality.”

      This is an interesting move. On the one hand, I wish Unilever woulds stop messing with products like whitening skin cream and pal oil. But if they are going to use palm oil I'd rather they be transparent about it. It makes me hope, perhaps naively that they will always be transparent about what they do. It's encouraging and discouraging at the same time.

    1. Fair & Lovely is not the only Unilever product to shore up problematic ideas about skin colour. In 2013 the company drew criticism for a body lotion promotion campaign in Thailand, which appeared to portray lighter skinned female students as smarter than dark-skinned ones.  Its other brands such as Pond’s also contain whitening lotions.  Unilever’s wares are also not the only ones on the market to run counter to the spirit of the SDGs; every single product that implies that any skin colour is inferior is guilty of this. (One might argue that tanning products also sell a way for people to temporarily change their skin colour, but pale skin carries much less socio-cultural baggage than dark skin does). 

      It's really horrifying that Unilever sells skin whitening products. It makes me trust them much less. It's such an ignorant thing for a supposedly smart and sustainable company to do.

    2. While there have been some valid feminist critiques about Dove’s emphasis on beauty and empowerment through consumerism, Dove and Unilever’s other Sustainable Living Brands have, by and large, lived up to the spirit of the Sustainable Development Goals.  But products such as Fair & Lovely contravene the goals on several counts. Goal 5, for instance, aims to empower all women and girls.  While Fair & Lovely ostensibly wants to “give women the confidence to overcome their own hesitations and fears to achieve their true potential”, it has spent decades portraying dark-skinned women as people who are overlooked romantically and professionally, until they buy their way to fairer skin.  If a company truly wants to empower women, surely a better way to do this is to break down stereotypes that perpetuate sexism and colourism—that is, discrimination on the basis of skin colour—rather than to sell people a product to pander to those insecurities?

      At the beginning of the semester, we talked about how gender equality and female empowerment are part of sustainability. This is a very good point. If Unilever doesn't remember or care about things like this, it undermines their other goals.

    1. Unilever cannot be faulted for its dedication and good intentions. And as long as sustainability equals efficiency, all is well. Both Unilever and the world benefit, exactly the way Paul Polman likes it. Reducing the use of pesticides is good for both the environment and the company’s shareholders. The more fruit a palm oil tree can bear, the less land will have to be cleared. But win-win scenarios are not often as clear-cut. Personal care product sales are up and while this means sustainability brownie points for Unilever, it also causes environmental problems in the emerging economies. And the Roundtable which was supposed to promote sustainability, has become a lightning conductor for an unsustainable production model. Unilever’s proud boast is that it has managed to ‘decouple’ or separate higher revenue from environmental impact. It is a first move towards the beacon of sustainable growth. A closer look at the company’s Sustainable Living Plan shows Unilever is on schedule in most areas (although deadlines are moved about), except when it comes to the environmental impact of consumer use. That is where the bullets on the sustainability dashboard turn an angry red. Greenhouse gas emissions ‘per consumer unit' went up eight per cent from 2010. That poses a problem, since two thirds of Unilever’s total CO2 emissions stem from consumer use. So the business is growing – but not in a very green way. People want to consume responsibly but not less. Authorities are willing to go green as long as the public purse does not suffer. And companies are no longer bogey men but part of the solution. Paul Polman is a welcome guest because his message is a comfortable one. As head of a transnational company he is making the world a better place. But unlike his idols Ghandi and Mother Theresa, the Unilever boss, while looking after People and Planet, must never lose sight of Profit, as the recent Kraft-Heinz takeover attempt attests.

      I think this is one of the most objective reviews of former CEO of Unilever, and is accurate about the current state of Unilever. I think we should always take what a company says about sustainability with a grain of salt because it is still trying to profit. But, we need people who care in business. Businesses contribute to pollution more than anyone else. Unilever is still kind of in a gray area, but I think their efforts still make them reputable overall, at least in the eyes of the public.

    1. Experts estimate that in Africa alone, conservation efforts have created 14 million "conservation refugees" since the colonial era. In this model, some of the indigenous people, if they were lucky enough, could work as park wardens, preventing their relatives from entering the protected zones.

      This adds to the conflicting reputation and credibility of WWF. I think that sometimes they put animals above people when, in reality, we need to honor both animals and people for sustainability. We're all part of the ecosystem. Having 14 million displaced people is not sustainable. WWF is very complicated; they seem to have great intentions but sometimes poor execution. It's hard to say whether or not to trust them.

    1. You might expect global food conglomerates to resist such a diversity push. But Dorothy Shaver, who is head of sustainability for Knorr, says the company wants to be part of this movement. She says the shift in the amount and types of food people eat is inevitable and will also open new markets. "This actually gives us a major opportunity to identify some of the flavors that people are missing out on," she says. "And then we can get them on people's plates. We can get people to switch out one of their white potatoes that they eat potentially four or five times a week with a purple yam. Or in Indonesia make it an Indonesian sweet potato instead of white rice." Shaver says doing this all over the planet would have an enormous impact on the environment. She says Knorr will try to mainstream 10 or 15 of these so-called future foods in its dishes. She says its popular cheddar and broccoli rice dish will soon have versions featuring black beans and quinoa instead of rice.

      Dorothy Shaver designed the report. This article shows she is personally committed to the cause.

  4. wwf.panda.org wwf.panda.org
    1. WWF wishes to convene stakeholders from across the food system and integrate decisions that will ensure human and planetary health. Together, we have the power to bring food to the top of the conservation agenda and help deliver tangible results which protect our future. Our goal is to create sustainable food systems that safeguard the variety of life on Earth while ensuring food security, now and in the future. To achieve this, WWF works to improve how our food is produced, to change the way we eat, and to ensure food goes in our bodies not in the bin. Together with others, we are focusing on three key outcomes by 2030: - Half of the area used for agriculture and aquaculture is sustainably managed, with no new areas being converted - Global food waste is halved and post-harvest loss is reduced - Half of food consumption is in line with World Health Organisation dietary guidelines in target countries:

      Still unsure how credible I find WWF but they seem to have good ideas about food sustainability.

    1. The unwashed masses will not be moved by this stunt which validates the idea that it’s okay to peddle fake news for a just cause. Sitting on the opposite end of the spectrum, Joseph Barratt, CEO of Mutant Communications lauded the campaign for the impact it had. “It provoked emotions and discussions in households and workplaces around Singapore in an area where it is typically difficult to break through the noise. The outrage at the faux business drove awareness with limited resources,” he said, adding: Any allegations that the campaign spread fake news is misrepresenting a real issue in the media today.

      This article is interesting. I don't think in this instance that WWF was involved in spreading fake news, but it does show they are capable of devising plans that don't necessarily put ethics first. It's a good reminder that WWF is still involved in trying to market itself and get press. I think that WWF doesn't take a comprehensive approach to understanding the ivory trade, which is largely a result of poverty. This makes them a little less credible to me. Although, some people might find them more credible for going so far for a cause.

    1. A yearlong BuzzFeed News investigation across six countries — based on more than 100 interviews and thousands of pages of documents, including confidential memos, internal budgets, and emails discussing weapons purchases — can reveal:Villagers have been whipped with belts, attacked with machetes, beaten unconscious with bamboo sticks, sexually assaulted, shot, and murdered by WWF-supported anti-poaching units, according to reports and documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.The charity’s field staff in Asia and Africa have organized anti-poaching missions with notoriously vicious shock troops, and signed off on a proposal to kill trespassers penned by a park director who presided over the killings of dozens of people.WWF has provided paramilitary forces with salaries, training, and supplies — including knives, night vision binoculars, riot gear, and batons — and funded raids on villages. In one African country, it embroiled itself in a botched arms deal to buy assault rifles from a brutal army that has paraded the streets with the severed heads of alleged “criminals.”The charity has operated like a global spymaster, organizing, financing, and running dangerous and secretive networks of informants motivated by “fear” and “revenge,” including within indigenous communities, to provide park officials with intelligence — all while publicly denying working with informants. { "id": 122412833 } Jorge Silva / Reuters World Wildlife Fund activists demonstrate on the sidelines of the UN Climate Change conference. { "id": 122247237 } WWF has launched an “independent review” led by human rights specialists into the evidence uncovered by BuzzFeed News. “We see it as our urgent responsibility to get to the bottom of the allegations BuzzFeed has made, and we recognize the importance of such scrutiny,” the charity said in a statement. “With this in mind, and while many of BuzzFeed’s assertions do not match our understanding of events, we have commissioned an independent review into the matters raised.” The charity declined to answer detailed questions sent by BuzzFeed News.

      Again, this is very hard to ignore. This is the biggest thing cutting into the campaign. It makes me suspicious. Even if everything WWF said in the campaign was true and ethical, I think it's a bad idea to work with a company that's involved in such abuses. Hopefully Unilever was unaware of these problems. If they had known and collaborated with WWF anyway, that would be a serious knock to their credibility and reliability.

    2. Shikharam’s alleged murder in 2006 was no isolated incident: It was part of a pattern that persists to this day. In national parks across Asia and Africa, the beloved nonprofit with the cuddly panda logo funds, equips, and works directly with paramilitary forces that have been accused of beating, torturing, sexually assaulting, and murdering scores of people. As recently as 2017, forest rangers at a WWF-funded park in Cameroon tortured an 11-year-old boy in front of his parents, the family told BuzzFeed News. Their village submitted a complaint to WWF, but months later, the family said they still hadn’t heard back. { "id": 122251936 } Tsering Dolker Gurung for BuzzFeed News People living near Nepal's Chitwan National Park. { "id": 122247237 } WWF said that it does not tolerate any brutality by its partners. “Human rights abuses are totally unacceptable and can never be justified in the name of conservation,” the charity said in a statement.But WWF has provided high-tech enforcement equipment, cash, and weapons to forces implicated in atrocities against indigenous communities. In the coming days, BuzzFeed News will reveal how the charity has continued funding and equipping rangers, even after higher-ups became aware of evidence of serious human rights abuses.

      This shows that WWF breaks its own rules. It makes me wonder if their partnership with Unilever is about sustainability or money. Unfortunately I think very few people know of this scandal, so it hasn't impacted WWF's reputation. But I think it could.

    3. WWF Funds Guards Who Have Tortured And Killed People

      This comprehensive article is the biggest blow to Unilever's campaign. WWF is one of the main partners who wrote the report. Although WWF has a history of doing good things for the planet, this article is very hard to swallow. It made me completely distrust WWF.

    1. The focus areas that were addressed in the methodology for this report were nutritional value, relative environmental impact, flavour, accessibility, acceptability and affordability

      This portion of the document explains every detail that went into picking each food. The process includes many different measures of sustainability and health. All of the science is current and accurate.

    2. REFERENCES

      This comprehensive list of varied references makes the document very reliable.

    1. The firm, behind more than 400 brands from Ben & Jerry's ice-cream to Dove soap, has pledged to remove sexist stereotypes from its own ads and called on rivals to follow suit.Some 40% of women did not identify with their portrayal in adverts, it said.The firm spends £6bn a year on adverts.The figure makes it the second-biggest advertiser globally and chief marketing officer Keith Weed told the BBC this gave it a responsibility to push the change "on a broader society level". /**/ (function() { if (window.bbcdotcom && bbcdotcom.adverts && bbcdotcom.adverts.slotAsync) { bbcdotcom.adverts.slotAsync('mpu', [1,2,3]); } })(); /**/ He said the campaign, dubbed Unstereotype, was the culmination of two years of research.

      Although this article is not related to sustainable food, it does discuss things on the UN goals like gender equality. The fact that Unilever cares about removing stereotypes from its ads shows that not only are they conscious of the current climate of gender discussions, they are also conscious of representing gender equality publicly. This enhances their reputation and credibility ethics-wise.

    1. In January 2017, corporate behemoth Unilever unveiled a new commitment to ensuring that all of its plastic packaging is fully reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025. The commitment was built on a recognition that the global plastics market was broken; nine months later, Blue Planet 2 aired, alerting the public to the environmental hazards of plastics.

      This article describes Unilever's plans to change the way it uses plastic. It shows that Unilever cares about sustainability because they are transparent about the economic benefits of being more sustainable as well as the benefits to the planet.