Happy New Year 2024 (and sorry for the forum being offline some hours) /DM
The bosses of some of the world’s biggest companies, including Apple and Amazon, have been told to put the planet before profits – not by environmental campaigners but by other multinationals, including Danone’s US arm, and a unit of Unilever.A group of more than 30 American business leaders, including the heads of outdoor clothing brand Patagonia, The Body Shop owner Natura, Ben & Jerry’s (part of Unilever) and Danone’s US business, have taken the extraordinary step of taking out a full-page ad in Sunday’s edition of the New York Times to champion a more ethical way of doing business. The advert is aimed at members of the influential Business Roundtable (BRT) lobby group, which represents 181 of the US’s biggest companies.
On Friday morning in downtown San Francisco, activists huddled on the sidewalk outside an Amazon Go store on Market Street. The local Climate Strike march—part of a day of global student walk-outs ahead of the United Nations summit next week in New York City—was about to pass by, and the anti-Amazon contingent was creating unique signs and props to join in the youthful crowd of strikers.ICE Isn’t NICE, read one woman’s poster, styled with an upside-down Amazon smile. The climate is changing. Can we?, read another. Sporting T-shirts and hats from pro-worker and immigrant rights organizations, the group sang protest songs and chatted with local media. Near the curb, a stack of empty shipping boxes mimicked the now-ubiquitous urban sight of Amazon’s package debris. They were also spray-painted with faux cautions: WARNING: Contains Jails + Cages. Contains worker abuse.