Posted by jamie — 23 April 2008 at 3:15pm
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The orang-utans may have retreated from
Unilever's premises for the time being, but our campaign to protect Indonesia's
rainforests from the expanding palm oil industry has only just started. As well
as an advert appearing in today's edition of the Times, commuters at
Blackfriars tube station in London
this morning saw some of our special 'Dove' adverts alongside the escalators.
Blackfriars is the nearest station to Unilever's London headquarters, so a large number of
their staff should have seen them on their way into work. Watch the video below for a taste of what they saw.
Posted by jamie — 21 April 2008 at 6:56pm
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A couple of videos that throw our new Dove campaign into sharp relief. The first is a rather stonking effort from our international office, taking Dove's own Onslaught film as it's inspiration (you can see the original here). The second, some highlights from the fun and games in London and Merseyside earlier today. Enjoy.
Posted by jamie — 21 April 2008 at 3:11pm
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As of 2pm, orang-utans are still gracing
Unilever premises in London
and Port Sunlight and are showing no signs of swinging down. They've also
appeared on the continent, popping up in Italy
and the Netherlands.
Unilever's Rome HQ has been paid a visit and employees were blocked from
entering the building by a large box placed in front of the entrance, with the
slogan 'Stop Dove destroying rainforests' emblazoned upon it. In Rotterdam, six volunteers
were trying to scale Unilever's waterfront offices to hang a banner with a
similar message, but unfortunately strong winds forced them down.
Today, we're launching the next stage in our campaign to protect the rainforests of Indonesia from the expansion of the palm oil industry. Our volunteers, dressed as orang-utans, are currently climbing over the London headquarters of the company behind Dove, which uses palm oil as one of its ingredients. Our latest research shows that Unilever, the makers of Dove, is buying palm oil from companies that are destroying valuable rainforest and peatland areas, which is bad news not only for the millions of people who depend on them for their way of life and endangered species such as the orang-utan, but also for the global climate.
Major new campaign targets one of the biggest consumers of palm oil on the planet
21 April, 2008
The company behind some of the world's biggest brands, including Dove, is driving the destruction of the last remaining habitats of the orang-utan and massively speeding up climate change, according to environmental group Greenpeace.
Simultaneous "direct actions" are taking place across the UK and Europe, and a damning new report has been released highlighting Unilever's use of palm oil supplied by companies that are systematically destroying the rainforests of Indonesia.
In November 2007, Greenpeace released Cooking the Climate, an 82-page report summarising the findings of a two-year investigation that revealed how
the world’s largest food, cosmetic and biofuel companies were driving the
wholesale destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands through growing
palm oil consumption.
If, as you
read this, you're tucking into a KitKat or dipping into a tube of Pringles, you
might be interested to know that they feature in our new report about the impact of the palm oil industry on tropical rainforests and climate change. Along
with Flora margarine, these products contain palm oil which is linked to the
destruction of forests and peatlands in Indonesia. As the report shows,
it's a recipe for disaster.
Conceding to the demands of citizens groups and Greenpeace, the Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever has agreed to permanently close its polluting mercury thermometer factory in India, the largest in the world. The company has also agreed to undertake a clean-up of 5.3 tons of mercury wastes it illegally dumped at a local scrapyard, but it is still refusing to accept that local people and workers at the factory in Kodiakanal may have been exposed to the highly toxic metal.
The Anglo-Dutch multinational, Unilever, has admitted that the mercury contaminated waste dumps exposed by Greenpeace and local citizens' groups two weeks ago, originated from its mercury thermometer factory in the Indian tourist town of Kodiakanal.
Although its Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Lever, initially denied responsibility for the 5.3 tonnes of wastes lying at the Munjikal scrapyard in Kodaikanal, it finally closed its factory pending an investigation and has said it will assess the environmental consequences of the dump.
Palni Hills Conservation Council, United Citizens Council of Kodaikanal, Greenpeace and New Delhi-based Toxics Link have dismissed as an "insensitive PR exercise" Hindustan Lever's official response of temporarily suspending production at their polluting mercury thermometer factory in Kodaikanal. The groups were responding to HLL's attempt to "cover up" their environmental crime by saying that there was a "remote chance" that mercury-containing broken thermometers may have left the factory and attributing it to a possible "human error."
