League Table

I’m so happy to announce that after we released our 2014 tuna league table, and after all your emails, tweets and calls to Tesco over the last few weeks – we have a fantastic victory. The manufacturer of Oriental & Pacific tuna has agreed to our demands. This means that fewer sharks, turtles and rays will be killed as a result of the method used to fish this tuna.

It’s nearly Christmas …. And as I write this it's even snowing outside the Greenpeace office, so maybe it’s time for a little goodwill and some good news.

Way back in 2008 we published a league table ranking the major tinned tuna suppliers in the UK on a number of environmental criteria. Back then big brands John West and Princes were languishing at the bottom of the pile. When we updated that league table in June 2009, we reported some significant process from many of the UK's big retailers – with Sainsbury’s, Co-op, M&S, Waitrose and Asda all increasing their commitments to more responsible sourcing of the tuna in their cans.

Tinned tuna is big business - there's a can in almost everyone's cupboard. Here in the UK we can't get enough of it - we're the second biggest consumer in the world after the USA. Globally tuna exports are worth more than any other fish species, at around 2.7 billion dollars per year.

But there are big problems with the way tuna is caught. Our new briefing paper, Tinned Tuna's Hidden Catch, explains how large numbers of sea turtles, sharks and other fish are all being wiped out by the global tuna industry. And tuna is in trouble itself, with some species critically endangered by overfishing.

Tissues: not something many of us spend a great deal of time thinking about. As long as they does the job, what more do you need? But when you begin to consider where that paper has come from and the impact it has on forest areas, it starts to become a lot more interesting. That's why we've produced a new tissue product guide - search the guide to discover which brands of toilet roll, kitchen towel, and tissues are kind to forests as well as your nose.