After shareholder pressure from AYS, Best Buy, the largest U.S. electronics retailer, began to offer e-waste recycling, mostly for free, at all 900+ stores in late February. Click on the photo for more information about As You Sow's E-waste program.

The company began to move toward that goal last year after AYS filed a shareholder proposal that was withdrawn after Best Buy agreed to a pilot take back project at 100 stores in three regions last June.  The pilot was a great success, according to the company and led to the planned roll out of a nationwide system. Most electronics will be accepted for free but TVs and CRT monitors will be charged a $10 fee. However, that fee will be partly offset by a $10 gift certificate given to customers. Click here for more details.

“This is a great victory for our Sustainability Initiative,” said Conrad MacKerron, CSR Program Director, who leads the dialogue with Best Buy. “This will keep millions of old TVs out of landfills and provide a model for other electronics retailers to follow.”  But there are still important issues to address. The company is bearing the short-term cost but electronics manufacturers need to take eventual responsibility for e-waste.  AYS will press Best Buy to ensure its vendors bar hazardous components from export to developing countries. Activist groups have uncovered unsafe e-waste dumping and processing sites in China and Nigeria. AYS continues to dialogue with Wal-Mart to enact similar take back policies.

Despite Progress, Most Beverage Companies Fail AYS Recycling Scorecard

Despite some impressive progress, most beverage companies continue to fail basic criteria for dealing with the environmental implications of their packaging, according to a new Beverage Container Recycling Scorecard and Report released by AYS in December 2008. More than 200 billion beverage containers are sold in the U.S. each year, but over 130 billion of those are still sent to landfills and incinerated, representing a huge waste of natural resources.
The report is based on original AYS research that evaluated 23 major U.S. beverage company programs and policies on recycled content in beverage containers and other environmental attributes, and efforts to promote container recycling. It identified industry leaders and laggards among all major beverage companies.

“We found that no beverage company emerged as the clear environmental packaging leader in all categories and that too many beverage companies continue to score poorly in all environmental aspects of the beverage container environmental scorecard,” said Amy Galland, AYS Research Director and author of the study. Click here to see Amy Galland speak about the Beverage Container Scorecard on NBC11 News.

The study gave Coca-Cola high ratings for light weighting its bottles, setting high company container recovery goals and making significant investments in recycling. Nestle Waters North America was the most improved company since the last report two years ago, introducing a lighter Eco-Shape bottle, setting a 60% industry goal for recycling plastic bottles, and endorsing a new model for state container deposit legislation. But many other leading beverage makers including Cott, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, MillerCoors, National Beverage and Starbucks received failing grades. Click here for full details.

As You Sow has increased its focus on climate change with new actions at a utility and several information technology companies. We have filed a proposal at Idacorp – Idaho’s largest public utility –asking the company to adopt quantitative goals for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Coal is the most carbon-polluting type of power generation.  The electric industry accounts for more carbon dioxide emissions than any other sector including the transportation and industrial sectors. Idacorp’s energy portfolio consists of 53% coal and virtually no renewable energy. Yet the Idaho Dept of Energy states there are renewable resources and energy efficiency opportunities within the state to handle all of Idaho power’s load growth over the next 20 years. “Idacorp is an industry laggard,” said As You Sow’s Michael Passoff, “electric industry leaders have already set absolute GHG reduction targets.”  With the new Obama administration and Democratic Congress there is a strong probability of strict federal regulation of GHG emissions. Idacorp’s reliance on coal fired electric plants means its customers and investors will be hard hit by fees incurred in such regulations.

In the IT sector, proposals were filed with Apple, Broadcom, Microchip Technology, Micron and Novell asking the companies to do better reporting of carbon footprint and reduction. Agreements to improve reporting have already resulted in withdrawals at Broadcom and Novell. Click on the photo above to read the CNBC article about our Idacorp campaign.

Whole Foods agrees to switch non-BPA water bottles

Whole Foods has agreed to phase out of Bisphenol A (BPA) from its plastic water bottles following the filing of an As You Sow shareholder proposal. BPA is an endocrine disruptor used in large quantities in both polycarbonate bottles and can linings. For more information on our BPA program click on the picture above.

Whole Foods has already removed BPA from its baby bottles and smaller water bottles, and expects to finish the conversion from larger three- and five-gallon water bottles in the next few months. The goal is for all of its brand name water bottles to be BPA-free in 2009. The company updated its website to include more information about the emerging science of BPA and states that “Our goal is to help our shopper avoid endocrine-active materials in products and packaging where functional alternatives exist.”

“Removing BPA from its water bottles is an excellent way to highlight the company’s commitment to safety, reassure customers, push the rest of the industry, and show the company’s leadership on such a controversial issue,” said Michael Passoff, Associate Director of the CSR program.

As You Sow and Green Century Funds have contacted 20 other companies on their use of BPA and will be publishing a BPA Scorecard in April 2009. To receive a copy, please contact our Research Director, Amy Galland.

Coming Soon: Our 5th Annual Proxy Season Preview

The Chicago Tribune called our Proxy Season Preview the “bible for socially progressive foundations, religious groups, pension funds and other tax-exempt organizations.” It describes hundreds of social and environmental shareholder resolutions, and provides a comprehensive list of companies and upcoming proxy votes, so investors can vote their proxies in an informed manner. This free publication will be available shortly. To be added to our mailing list please contact our Associate Director, Michael Passoff. Click on the icon above for more information about Aligning Foundation Investment and Mission.

Compact Fluorescent Lamps

CFLs have become ubiquitous due to their overall reduction in energy use in comparison to incandescent bulbs.  But CFLs come with their own risk – toxic substances, most notably mercury, in the bulbs.  Where CFLs save on total mercury emissions generated by electric utilities, they bring the mercury directly into consumers’ homes.  Most consumers are not aware of the risk posed by mercury escaping from bulbs that break in the home. We identified two areas where AYS could have an immediate impact on this environmental hazard – labeling bulb packages for mercury content and warning consumers that there are special cleanup procedures required in case of accidental breakage.  We filed resolutions with General Electric, Home Depot, and Lowe’s Co., and are in dialogue with Wal-Mart about making these changes to their CFL bulbs.  Due to progress in dialogue, we withdrew from both GE and Lowe’s. A new EU directive requires CFL labeling by late 2010. We believe the combination of the EU directive and our shareholder pressure present the potential for an industry-wide win on labeling. Click on the photo above for more information on our CFL program.

New Focus on Forced Labor in Electronics Supply Chains

We are developing another aspect to our forced labor work, which also ties in with our focus on e-waste. Recent news stories have highlighted forced and child labor in conflict areas of Eastern Congo, where mining bankrolls oppressive militia groups.  The electronics industry has started to take heed. We are part of a growing group of companies, human rights groups and investors working on policies to avoid corporate profits from conflict metals. Plans are underway to trace the source of several metals from the area. We will also press for enhanced recycling of old machines to recapture precious metals as a way to take the pressure off of mining in conflict areas.

Stakeholders Meet with Uzbek Ambassador

Building on a year of work and Wal-Mart’s big announcement last September to exclude Uzbek cotton from its supply chain, interest and action continued to address slave labor in Uzbekistan. Gap is starting a pilot project to trace its supply chain down to the field. Patricia Jurewicz was quoted in a Fortune article highlighting Wal-Mart’s “bullying benefactor” activities. In December, stakeholders finally met with the Uzbek Ambassador and insisted that the government allow the International Labor Organization to do an in-depth assessment of the situation in the cotton fields. We will keep the pressure on until children in Uzbekistan are no longer pulled from their classrooms and bused out to the cotton fields under dangerous working conditions. Click here for more information about our Slave Labor work.