“Few things are more important than a company’s reputation with stakeholders.  It represents the sum of all that we do – and reflects the value and trust that consumers, customers, employees, investors and communities place in our company, our brands and our people. We constantly strive to remain worthy of that trust…” says CEO Ken Powell. You’re right about that, Mr. Powell – your company’s reputation is everything, and it’s massively at risk.

Unfortunately for General Mills, over three hundred concerned cereal eaters across the U.S. and Canada took to the streets last week for a National Palm Oil Week of Action and distributed 20,000 spoof Cheerios postcards.

Concerned citizens are raising awareness about General Mills’ role in rainforest destruction from California to Minnesota to Alberta, Canada: General Mills is definitely on the spot.

In the world of Corporate Social Responsibility, the past two weeks have been an exciting time for companies like General Mills, receiving awards such as ‘Top Corporate Citizen,’ ranking 47^th in the world’s  50 ‘Most Admired Companies’ and 29^th on the ‘Diversity List.’ These awards recognize the company’s strong global reputation – at least according to Fortune Magazine and global business leaders.

But what this small group of decision makers doesn’t know is that millions of Indigenous peoples, endangered species and forests are at risk from palm oil expansion in Indonesia – thanks to General Mills. More »

This past Sunday, a crowd of leprechauns entered several Twin Cities grocery stores and froze with shock, horrified to discover that beloved Lucky Charms cereals are contributing to rainforest destruction! These 17 leprechauns were so shocked in fact, they stayed frozen for 3 minutes as grocery store shoppers read their pamphlets and green cloth patches describing General Mills’ tragic contribution to rainforest destruction due to the company’s sourcing of socially and environmentally destructive palm oil.

This flash mob culminated a Palm Oil Week of Action in which over 300 groups from around the country took action in their communities to raise awareness of the need for General Mills to stop using palm oil tainted with rainforest destruction.

While grocery store managers were not pleased to see their customer’s shopping experience altered in any way, the beauty of this flash mob was in its message: “Demand responsible products!” Leprechauns don’t want to lose Lucky Charms (or Cheerios or Wheaties for that matter) any more than kids around the world, but we all want to be able to purchase products that are as healthy for our planet as they are for our families. The purpose of this fun and fresh leprechaun flash mob was not to tell people what to buy or not buy, but rather to raise consumer awareness and help amplify the demand to General Mills for socially and environmentally responsible palm oil. And customers in these grocery stores LOVED it.

After freezing for three minutes, flute music began to play and the leprechauns did a jig as they shuffled out of the store and into the next grocery just to do it all over again!

Twin Cities Daily Planet wrote up a great article and video of this fun and feisty action.

General Mills can’t forever ignore the roar of leprechauns, valentines from kids, phone calls from angry shoppers around the country who want Cheerios that are really cheery, and giant yellow banners on the snowy lawn of their corporate headquarters! Soon they will have to step up and deal with the pink elephant in their office. General Mills: STOP destroying rainforests. The sooner the better, for all of us.

Brighter Planet has just come out with a report that examines the climate impact of multiple factors along the entire supply chain of producing, transporting, packaging, preparing and discarding our food. The authors find that “In all, food represents 21% of the typical American’s total annual carbon footprint of 28.6 tons CO2e. Of course, that’s just the average – your personal foodprint depends on how much and what kinds of food you eat, where and how that food is produced, how it’s prepared, and what you do with the leftovers.”

Overall, the report is impressively broad in scope. Unfortunately, it neglects to examine the climate impact of deforestation for food production. I wonder how that would add to the carbon footprint of the average American diet – quite a bit, I’d expect!

Still, the authors’ recommendations for reducing your carbon “foodprint” are sound – and they would also contribute to reducing deforestation for food production:
• Eat fewer animals and more plants
• Buy unprocessed foods with less packaging
• Grow and harvest your own food
• Minimize car trips to restaurants and stores
• Cook at home more and eat out less
• Cook with efficient appliances and techniques
• Compost, recycle, and relish leftovers

Isn’t it nice that the same steps that are good for our health and our budget will also help the planet?

“Can you imagine sitting down to breakfast with your Cheerios and then reading this in the newspaper?”

Well, don’t choke, but you deserve to know that one of America’s most well known brands- General Mills- is destroying rainforests.

Now,  this company is going to be famous not only for Cheerios, Betty Crocker and Hamburger Helper, but also for their sizeable contribution to rainforest destruction! General Mills isn’t as wholesome as they look.

Fortunately, the Minneapolis/St. Paul area is full of incredible grassroots communities intertwining movements for local agriculture, social justice, and a safe climate. There are so many inspiring people walking their talk, and ready to acknowledge and address how environmental and social distress to sneak into our responsibility chain via the food on our tables.

On Tuesday, Jan. 19, 42 activists unfurled a HUGE 30 x 70 foot banner reading: “WARNING: General Mills Destroys Rainforests” at the General Mills corporate headquarters. General Mills purchases the controversial palm oil from Cargill Incorporated. Cargill is sourcing palm oil from Indonesia where rainforests are being torn down and forest-dependant peoples are being ruthlessly kicked out of their homes all for an unsustainably-grown cash crop called palm oil. For the full story, visit www.theproblemwithpalmoil.org and see Rainforest Agribusiness campaigner Ashley’s blog about why we are zooming in on General Mills. Hey, you can sign the petition while you’re at it!

Activists here in the Twin Cities are thinking globally and acting locally in rapidly growing numbers. As our Twin Cities chapter grows and branches out, people from faith-based groups, food co-ops, political organizations, and art collectives are all stepping up to hold these local corporations accountable.

The result is incredible. General Mills has gotten the message loud and clear. And they know that  we aren’t going anywhere until they not only commit to getting dirty palm oil out of their supply chains, but until they follow through and do it.

Until then, we look forward to planting seeds of awareness across the country and watching people spring up to stop big agribusiness from disrespecting rainforests, family farmers, and the climate. The flowers of this work is in the connections, the friendships, and the collective power we are reclaiming person to person, company to company, and country to country, from Minneapolis to Kalimantan.

P.S. If you are based in/around the Twin Cities and want to join the local uproar, plug in to the RAN-Twin Cities chapter or Facebook group.

Here in Copenhagen (Day 5, 5:00 PM), delegates from all over the world are not surprised that the U.S. is playing a disappointing role in the climate negotiations, after all the science calls for 40% emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2020, and the U.S. climate legislation calls for only 4%. This past summer, RAN opposed the Waxman Markey bill in the House of Representatives for many reasons, the largest being the inclusion of 2 billion tons in carbon offsets. These are 2 billion tons of carbon that U.S. polluters do not have to stop emitting, a gaping loophole in our effort to thwart climate change that keeps us addicted to fossil fuels.

Half of those offsets were to be used for domestic sources from sectors whose emissions are not capped, particularly the agriculture and forest sectors. The other half, 1 billion tons of offsets, are to come from international sources. The two major potential source of carbon offsets internationally would be:

1) The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or a similar regime of reduced emissions projects from developing countries. The CDM is quite controversial, and exists under the Kyoto Protocol, which the U.S. did not sign onto, so these CDM-like projects would theoretically need to emerge from the new agreement now being negotiated in Copenhagen.

2) And the second source would be carbon credits from international forests. This regime is also being negotiated right now in Copenhagen, and its outcome will influence if not determine the future for forest protection in the coming decade. A strong REDD deal with good safeguards would mean forest protection and the rights of forest dependent people respected. A weak REDD deal without strong safeguards would allow the continued logging of the intact natural rainforests in countries like Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Brazil, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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As negotiations wrapped up in Barcelona at the UN Climate Talks, the opportunity for a robust agreement to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries (REDD) is dangling from a wire. The latest negotiating text, which parties will be working on at the opening of the Copenhagen UNFCCC COP15, contains no provisions to monitor vital safeguards in developing countries which will receive funding to implement REDD, nor language that will ensure the protection of intact natural forests in those countries.

REDD is intended to help developing countries protect their remaining rainforests and reduce the 15-20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation, forest degradation and peatland destruction.
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The controversy surrounding the US Chamber of Commerce continues. The labor coalition Change to Win recently issued a report on how the Chamber has been hijacked by right wing ideologues, whose opposition to regulation of greenhouse gas pollution has included calling for the EPA to conduct a ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ on climate change. In a letter to members sent today, Chamber COO called groups like RAN who believe that climate change is a real problem ‘environmental extremists’.

Meanwhile, more and more companies and business groups (Apple, Exelon, PG&E) are dropping their membership in the Chamber and public opposition to the Chambers’ climate change denial is growing. The latest opposition is coming from the high tech sector, where the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and Silicon Valley Joint Venture are running an ad campaign against the Chamber for its opposition. And the Chamber is on the run, having been forced to backpedal on its claims to be the voice of the business community; last week the Chamber claimed to ‘represent’ 3 million businesses, but this week it quietly reduced that number to ‘300,000’ members. Investors are calling for companies that they own shares in to drop their membership in the Chamber, and local Chambers are formally distancing themselves from the US Chamber’s opposition to action on climate change.
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Evidence is mounting about the social and environmental consequences of industrialized biofuels, aka agrofuels. A new paper from RAN concludes that we cannot grow our way out of our oil addiction. Because of agrofuels’ impacts on climate change, direct and indirect land use impacts, fossil fuel inputs, and the investments they may draw away from real solutions, agrofuels will not solve the twin crises of climate change and our dependence on oil.

The report also finds that if we don’t take action to rein in the rapid global expansion of agrofuels we will in fact be making these problems worse. Particularly when expanding in rainforest regions, the carbon debt accumulated by agrofuels will take decades or sometimes centuries to pay back.

RAN’s recommendation: rather than continuing to pursue agrofuels policies and increasing the global market place for agrofuels, we call on decision makers in the corporate and political arenas to prioritize proven, true solutions that halt the expansion of carbon-intensive industries. Policies and investments that support mass transit, bike transit, and plug in vehicles recharged by a green grid are far more efficient and cost effective means to reduce our dependence on oil. Agrofuels are not low carbon, and we can’t afford to lose any more time pursuing false solutions. It’s time for a real transportation revolution.

Read the full report at: http://ran.org/fileadmin/materials/comms/mediacontent/reports/Agrofuels_White_Paper.pdf

With climate talks underway in Bangkok, Indigenous activists reviewing the text and engaged in the talks calling for no market-based REDD deal, Greenpeace activists blockading the tar sands in Alberta, and the EU investigating fraud in carbon trading schemes, today is a big day for the movement for climate justice.

Too bad it’s such a disappointing day for climate in the US. Today Senators Boxer and Kerry released their first draft of the Senate climate bill, a companion to the House ACES bill passed this past June. It calls for the US to reduce emissions by 20% of 2005 levels by 2020. By comparison, island nations and the world’s least developed countries are calling for 45% emissions reduction from 1990 levels by 2020.
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Senators Kerry and Boxer have said that they are on track to introduce the first step for Senate version of the ACES climate bill next Wednesday, September 30th. The draft will reportedly include an emissions reduction target of 20% from 2005 levels by 2020, an modest improvement over ACES’ 17% target, but nowhere near the emissions reductions required to respond to the climate crisis.

Still, the Senate political scene is heavily influenced by coal and agriculture states and even these modest targets face a major uphill battle. Instead of reducing emissions, big oil, king coal and the senators they support are looking to carbon offsets as a solution. ACES offers 2 billion tons of emissions reductions to be achieved through offsets, a significant chunk of these are REDD offsets, also known as reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation from tropical rainforests.

Yes, REDD is promising for protecting forests. But if the Senate bill is as bad as the House ACES bill was, then REDD is poised to do more harm than good. In order to actually protect forests, the Senate bill’s forest provisions should:

1) Ensure that REDD measures are not a substitute for aggressive domestic emissions reductions.
2) Prioritize biodiversity and conservation, instead of logging and plantations. The House bill doesn’t even define the term ‘forest’, meaning that REDD offset credits may be encouraging converting rainforests into monocultural paper or oil palm plantations.
3) Protect and enforce Indigenous Peoples’ rights to free, prior and informed consent, in accordance with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
4) Create an international fund for REDD instead of tradeable forest carbon offsets.
5) Build a firewall to keep REDD carbon emission reductions out of fossil fuel emissions markets. There should be no offsets trading between forest and fossil carbon.
6) Strengthen weak forest governance in tropical countries with high rates of corruption and poor law enforcement.

If the Senate climate bill’s REDD provisions fail to include these safeguards, than the US climate bill will be doing more harm than good for tropical rainforests. You can take action on the Senate climate bill today; go to the RAN action center and tell your Senators to fight for strong REDD provisions in the climate bill today!