Oh-No-Costco Wholesale Ocean Destruction
Costco! Just say NO to wholesale ocean destruction
The Costco sustainable seafood toolkit was sent to me by Greenpeace yesterday and now I’m relaying the information to you. The cause is a great cause but the campaign Greenpeace put together is a little pieced milled. In a previous post Environmentalist Pointing Fingers Again! At Least This Time It’s Pretty Funny organizations from the Sierra Club to VoteVets.org ran a similar campaign to put pressure on specific senators on what environmentalist are calling Sen. Murkowski’s “Big Oil Bailout” resolution, which would have stripped the EPA of its authority to regulate carbon emissions. This campaign against the senate is quite funny and well thought-out and for good reason. If you’re going up against senators because if your campaign is not zipped up nice and tight they’ll pick everything apart in front of the public. Costco is a corporate behemoth and I wouldn’t expect them to sit silently if a campaign like this could be easily picked apart. Below is one of their videos that honestly kind of hard to sit through, you can tell that the script is ok but the actors are… not the best.
They’re also promoting people to create T-shirts and cards to hand out to people. I just don’t see this catching on with a shotty video, t-shirts and people passing out flyers. They are asking for help and ideas so if you feel a call to this cause and want to help share your ideas with them.
Now don’t get me wrong, Greenpeace is fighting for a noble cause with this campaign but at the same time they need to strategize and reach out into the community to find the talent pool that could really take something like this to the next level. So enough of my rant here’s the information that you need to get involved.
Dear Seafood Activist,
Our oceans need YOUR help! Recent scientific studies have shown that 90 percent of the world’s top predatory fish have disappeared and that unless current fishing practices change, global fish stocks will collapse by the middle of this century.
The situation couldn’t be more urgent.Every year, supermarkets ring up nearly $16 billion in seafood sales. Much of this seafood is caught or raised unsustainably. Greenpeace believes that supermarkets have a responsibility to their customers and the environment to avoid purchasing seafood from destructive fisheries and fish farms. That’s why we launched our sustainable seafood campaign in June 2008.
As a result, many supermarkets have improved their seafood buying practices and consumers have been empowered to speak up on behalf of the oceans. However, while it’s thrilling to see so many improvements, there’s still a lot more ground to cover.
Just as our work has encouraged and illuminated progressive seafood retailers around the country, it has also exposed a group of laggards that continue to sell unsustainable seafood with impunity. These companies have yet to take any meaningful action to address the rampant environmental destruction caused by their seafood purchasing behavior. Within this category, one company in particular is wreaking havoc in our oceans on an unparalleled scale: Costco.
Now it’s time to shine a spotlight on Costco and expose the truth behind their destructive seafood policies.
Enclosed in this toolkit you’ll find the background, tools and materials necessary to help get Costco to do the right thing.
By taking action, activists like yourself will not only be helping Costco to improve their seafood purchasing practices, but will be helping to bring up the entire industry standard. This is what it’s going to take to save our oceans and to ensure that future generations are able to have quality fish from sustainable fisheries for years to come.
Thanks again for everything you do. Your dedication and commitment are what makes Greenpeace special. Oh, and please don’t forget to have some fun while you’re at it!
For the oceans,
Casson TrenorGreenpeace Senior Markets Campaigner
What you’ll find in the toolkit:
• BACKGROUND ON COSTCO
• WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP
• A FEW IDEAS ABOUT HOW TO SPREAD THE WORD
• JOIN THE CALL
• HOW TO LET US KNOW WHAT YOU’VE DONE
• GET CREATIVE!
• FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
• WALLET-SIZED CARDS
• MAKE YOUR OWN COSTCO CAMPAIGN T-SHIRT OR APRON
• WHOLESALE OCEAN DESTRUCTION IS THE COSTCO WAY
FAQ:
I need help, where can I turn?
If you’ve looked over the toolkit and still have questions, please send an email to: organize.greenpeace@gmail.com
I don’t eat seafood. Why should I care?
You don’t have to eat seafood to be concerned with the health of our oceans and sustainability. The fact is that we can’t have a healthy planet without healthy oceans.
Why focus on supermarkets?
Collectively, supermarkets sell a massive amount of seafood and consequently can influence how the products they sell are caught or produced. If large supermarkets stop selling overfished and destructively fished or farmed seafood and start to demand sustainable seafood, the fishing industry will improve. In addition, large supermarkets can throw their weight behind positive reform in fisheries management, which is critical if we are to avert the crises facing our oceans.
I love shopping at Costco — should I stop?
Although we strongly suggest that people refrain from purchasing Costco’s seafood until the company’s policies improve, we aren’t asking people to stop shopping at Costco altogether. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Costco is only going to get serious about sustainable seafood if their customers and potential customers demand it.
Why is it still important that I get involved even if there isn’t a Costco close to me?
Like any other business, Costco wants to grow. They depend on their reputation and brand to establish their business in new places. Part of that reputation is being environmentally and socially conscious. They literally can’t afford to be seen otherwise. In addition, grocery stores are unique in the sense that when they come to a new community they rely on — almost more so than almost any other industry — taking customers from other grocery stores. Everyone was shopping somewhere else before! So, even if you don’t live near a Costco, you still have a big role to play in pressuring them to get serious about sustainable seafood!
What do we want supermarkets to do in general?
That one is easy:
1. Remove red-list species from their shelves.
2. Adopt sustainable seafood purchasing policies.
3. Provide clear and informative labeling on all the seafood products they sell.
What is “sustainable” seafood?
Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture operations are those which can be maintained indefinitely without reducing the targeted species’ ability to maintain its population at healthy levels, and without adversely impacting on other species within the ecosystem — including humans — by removing their food source, accidentally killing them, or damaging their physical environment.
Do you have any examples of a sustainable fishery?
Sustainable fisheries operate under strong, ecosystem-based management practices that maintain stock health and the sanctity of the ocean habitat. Sourcing sustainable seafood is extremely complex because of the difficulties in accurately assessing fish populations and because it is very difficult to trace the supply of fish from the ocean to the supermarket. Buying sustainable fish is difficult because there is no truly effective ‘green label’ that consumers can look for on fish products, as there is with wood products for example. Wood products are marked with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) logo if they come from sustainable sources. There is no truly equivalent labeling scheme for seafood. To improve the sustainability of fisheries, and thereby increase the availability of sustainable seafood, seafood retailers must demand sustainable seafood from their suppliers.
Is farmed fish a solution?
Fish farming, or aquaculture, has been promoted by the fishing industry and governments as the solution to ever-decreasing stocks in our oceans. There are positive examples of aquaculture, but in many cases, fish farming only makes the problem worse! This is because:
1. Wild caught fish are often used for fish meal and fish oil to feed farmed stocks which increases the pressure on the marine environment rather than reducing it.
2. Some breeding stocks for fish farms are taken from wild populations.
3. Disease and parasites can easily spread from fish farms in open waterways to wild populations.
4. Environments surrounding fish farms are polluted by fish waste, uneaten food, and the chemicals, antibiotics and vaccines used to control disease.
Is there any hope?
There is. Thanks to growing awareness of the plight of our oceans, and consumer interest in supporting businesses that make every effort to implement sustainability, we are seeing progress. But more needs to be done.
