Wallet Mouth

Here's something to love: Hershey is finally raising the bar

2012-02-14T06:37:00-08:00

It took the threat of an embarrassing Super Bowl ad, but Hershey is finally starting to act like it gives a damn about forced child labor being a major ingredient in its cocoa.

The company recently announced it would start buying only Rainforest Alliance-certified cocoa for its Bliss Chocolate products starting later this year. The Rainforest Alliance is a reputable nonprofit whose certification system will help ensure that the cocoa is grown sustainably, which includes the monitoring of forced and child labor.

Coincidentally, Hershey's change of heart (after a decade of foot dragging) came a week after Raise the Bar campaign partner the International Labor Rights Forum announced its intention to broadcast a JumboTron ad critical of Hershey's cocoa supply chain outside the Indianapolis stadium where the Super Bowl took place.

But hey, sometimes it takes a stick rather than a carrot. I just hope the company quickly moves to certify the cocoa for its regular bars, not to mention its other brands, like Reese's, KitKat, and Almond Joy.

In other positive Hershey news, GreenBiz.com reports that the chocolate maker has achieved zero waste at four of its Pennsylvania facilities. However, I'd be more impressed if they weren't incinerating the 10 percent of their waste that is organic. Why not go for industrial composting?

Photo: Flickr user mhiguera (Creative Commons)

Amuse-bouche: Safeway supports better fishing practices

2012-02-12T22:46:37-08:00

This just in from Greenpeace: Mega-grocer Safeway has done what Chicken of the Sea is too chicken to do: source its canned tuna only from fisheries that do not rely on destructive fish aggregating devices (FADs). Way to go, Safeway! [Link]

Corporate personhood hits terrible twosit's time to fight back

2012-01-20T10:38:15-08:00

The tagline of this blog, "Your wallet is a mouth," is aimed at individuals. You know, actual people made of flesh and blood. The idea being that we can use the power of our purses to encourage corporations to behave well and discourage them from behaving badly.

Unfortunately, for the past two years, that slogan has applied to corporations too. Thanks to the wrongheaded Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC, companies now have the right to spend as much money as they want in order to influence political discourse around elections. Think of it as a tug-of-war game on a very steep hill, with people at the top and corporations at the bottom. Hmm, who's going to win that, I wonder?

To mark this infamous second birthday, today is a nationwide day of action in which protesters will remind the world that in actuality, corporations are not people—and money is not speech.

It's an issue that's dear to my heart, so I'm taking Micro Mouth with me to help to occupy the San Francisco federal courthouse. Wish us luck!

In the meantime, I present you with some of my favorite talking points on corporate personhood from Move to Amend, one of a gazillion organizations that's mobilizing flesh-and-blood people to fight back.

The Supreme Court has ruled that money equals speech. The corollary is this: people who have money can speak, and people who don't, can't. This is a plutocracy, not a democracy.
A corporation has millions of dollars, exists in many places at once; can live forever; and employs thousands to do its work around the clock.... A human being has little expendable income, lives in one place, dies, and must use her small amount of free time to work for causes she believes in.
A human being needs clean air, clean water, food, and love to survive. A corporation does not.
A corporation has no mind, no conscience, and no motive but to amass money. A human being thinks, tries to make ethical decisions, and is motivated by obligations to family and community. How could we say that these two dramatically different kinds of “persons” have an equal voice in a democracy?
A person is a private entity with rights and sovereignty. A corporation is a public entity with obligations and responsibilities.
Human rights are for humans. A corporation is not a human being.

A day late and a dollar short

2011-11-30T23:00:00-08:00

This is me closing my Big Six bank account.

I didn't make it in time for Bank Transfer Day on Nov. 5, but for me, it's official: I have moved my money. My banking now takes place at my local credit union! (I actually joined it last month but had to keep the old account open until some scheduled payments went through.)

In contrast to the steely blue-gray interior of Citibank, Community Trust Credit Union has this cool work of art hanging on its wall:

The blurry fingertip you see in the lefthand corner is, uh, completely intentional — you know, to go with the hand motif.

Not that interior decor inspired me to move my money. It's more about the words on the mural, such as "community" and "empowerment." I had long been wondering just how aligned Citibank was with my values, but inertia kept me there. Then came the Occupy movement, which drew attention to the Move Your Money initiative.

And then came a letter from Citibank saying I would be charged $15/month unless I kept a minimum of $6,000 in my combined accounts. To Citibank's credit, when I called to express my displeasure, I was informed that I could switch to a different type of account with only a $1,500 minimum. But by then, it was too late. I was already in the sway of the credit union philosophy.

I should add that I don't believe that all big banks should be bombed off the face of the planet. Clearly they have an important role to play in the world economy. However, I'm happy to contribute, in however small a way, to a greater investment in Main Street rather than Wall Street.

Here's what Community Trust branch manager Carlos Brenes had to say when I asked him what my money would be supporting at the credit union as opposed to Citibank:

We lend out money to the community and to small businesses at a lower rate. We do lots of reinvestment. We go out and help nonprofit organizations do financial counciling, in particular helping youth understand the difference between credit unions and banks, and how payday lenders are really bad in terms of charging really high rates of 300% to 400%. We don't spend on things like advertising campaigns; we keep the money in the community.

Ka-ching!

Sweet on Halloween

2011-10-31T23:56:12-07:00

It's Halloween night, the kids are in bed, and if I don't write something right now, the whole month of October will have passed with no new post. So I'll keep it short and sweet.

Lots of conscious-consumer stories are written this time of year about reverse trick-or-treating, a campaign started by Global Exchange in which kids give Fair Trade chocolates and printouts about the ills of the cocoa industry to folks handing out treats. I like the motivation behind it, but I can't help but think that it comes across as a bit smug and holier-than-thou. Not to mention that if you're going to be ethical while trick-or-treating, shouldn't the kid also refuse any Hershey's? Which... yeah, that's not happening.

My big take-away from Halloween this year is how much it fosters neighborliness. Not only did we have a great time trick-or-treating with friends from our neck of the woods, but it was lovely chatting with some of the people who live in the houses I walk by every day. And seeing the local merchants getting into the spirit and plying all the kids with treats was a tangible reminder of how connected we all are and why I like to buy local.

Cloth baby wipes: not a bum deal

2011-09-07T17:11:21-07:00

Micro Mouth is now five months old, and I just realized there's an eco trick I've been doing with her that I should share with you, gentle reader. Instead of run-of-the-mill disposable baby wipes, I clean her derriere with reusable cloth ones.

See, at our house, we have lots of old T-shirts and other fabric items crying out for a new life. And while it ain't a romantic new life, it's one that I feel good about every time I try to imagine the ecological footprint of a pack of baby wipes. All that rayon and polyester... Not to mention the fact that it's all wrapped up in plastic.

There's a nice how-to article on a DIY baby-wipes kit from Growing a Green Family here, but I keep things even simpler. In addition to making my own wipes as opposed to buying them, I also avoid the use of special bins with soap and essential oils. This is because our changing station is in the bathroom. I just pull out a dry piece of fabric from the drawer, get it damp in the sink, use, rinse (or wash with soap, if appropriate), and throw it in pail with all the other dirty baby clothes.

Another alternative is to buy reusable wipes and kits like the above setup from Cheeky Wipes.

Amuse-bouche: Bike sharing saves lives

2011-08-20T16:14:36-07:00

Continuing on the theme of shared wheels, as Good reports, a bike-sharing program in Barcelona has lowered the death rate in that city, according to the British Medical Journal.

Unlike personal car-sharing companies, Bicing sports its own fleet of two-wheelers, and you can return a bike at any of dozens of stations sprinkled throughout the city. It's designed to complement public transit and help you quickly get from point A to point B.

Car sharing gets up close and personal

2011-05-19T14:05:32-07:00

Gasoline-fueled cars are (one of) the banes of our collective carbon-spewing existence—and the guilty pleasure of many a conscious consumer.

We've got one here at Wallet Mouth H.Q., albeit a small one... which presents us with a problem. Now that Mini Mouth has a little sister (happy six weeks, Micro Mouth!), an aura of inevitability has been gathering around the idea of either trading in our Mini Cooper for something bigger or getting a second car. Neither of which thrills me.

But wait! Maybe there's another way! Thanks to a recent law, it's now legal in California to rent cars from (and to) fellow citizens. With peer-to-peer car sharing, as it's known, car owners determine when their vehicles can be used and how much borrowers must pay per hour (usually between $6 and $9). Companies like Getaround, RelayRides, and Spride Share do all the coordinating, letting owners earn money and making it easy for borrowers to use a car near them.

A website tells you where the closest vehicle is. You get into the car via a swipable card, a fob, or your iPhone. With RelayRides and Spride, gas is included in the hourly rate; GetAround expects you to keep track of and replace the gas you use with each rental.

Insurance is covered by the car-sharing company—and this is where problems could crop up for loaner-outers. The state law that legalized car sharing (AB 1871) holds owners harmless if a borrower gets into an accident with their car. But what if the accident is due to some non-obvious problem lurking within the car? The law says nothing about vehicle inspections to ensure that cars are safe and well maintained.

The blog RentMyCar (which appears to have no actual car-sharing business associated with it, despite its name) states, "Once a vehicle owner starts to rent their vehicle to the public, they will be subjected to State and Federal car rental laws. One such law requires a vehicle owner to REGULARLY inspect their vehicle." It goes on to say that "an accident due to a defect in the vehicle may establish a negligence per se claim against the Vehicle owner, or even gross negligence to establish criminal charges."

I don't share the same degree of worry—after all, AB 1871 says "the personal vehicle sharing program shall assume all liability of the owner and shall be considered the owner of the vehicle for all purposes" in the event of an accident.

But it did make me curious, so I contacted the companies. Haven't heard back from Spride yet, but Matt Willard of GetAround told me his company requires owners "to maintain their regularly scheduled maintenance—roughly every 3,000 miles, or what would be your car's life for an oil change—to ensure the car is safe to drive for all our users." He added that if a car "has not adhered to that schedule and gets into an accident, Getaround would be liable for that accident."

And RelayRides' Ashley Denzen told me cars must be inspected upon entry to the system and on a yearly basis thereafter.

So to me, on balance, it sounds pretty safe. Mind you, I still wouldn't want to be the first loaner-outer whose car, god forbid, hits a pedestrian and gets sued.

But all of this is secondary to the coolness that is peer-to-peer car sharing. Many car owners are only occasional drivers. They own because they want wheels when they want them, and they're turned off by the vagaries of public transit. By making cars a little more public-transity (in that they're a shared service), car sharing has the potential to make more people choose not to own vehicles, as well as to make vehicle ownership less costly. Not a bad thing!

Amuse-bouche: BPA-free canned tomatoes!

2011-05-02T12:26:02-07:00

This just in (thanks, Amalia): Muir Glen's transition to BPA-free cans for tomato products is complete! Pretty exciting stuff for those interested in both convenience and not disrupting their endocrine system.

Kudos to Muir Glen—especially since finding a BPA-free option that works for tomatoes is apparently no small feat. For example, Eden Organic has been offering BPA-free cans for its bean and chili products since 1999 but earlier this year started putting its tomatoes in glass jars because of tomatoes' high acid content. I wonder if it will go back to cans now that the genie is out of the bottle—er, can.

Kissing off Hershey's

2011-04-29T16:28:23-07:00

I rarely buy Hershey's chocolate, as I prefer the really dark stuff (which Hershey's doesn't make). But a bigger-picture reason to not give the storied American brand your money is that it sources much of its cocoa from Ivory Coast, where forced child labor is rampant in that industry. Hershey's, which commands 42.5 percent of the U.S. chocolate market, isn't doing a very good job, compared with its competitors (such as Cadbury/Kraft, Mars, and Nestle), of tracing cocoa purchasing and implementing labor rights standards in its supply chain. In fact, it's doing next to nothing.

Which is why it's the target of the "Raise the Bar, Hershey!" campaign, sponsored by nonprofits Green America, Global Exchange, and the International Labor Rights Forum. I've always been a sucker for culture jamming, so I was pleased to see that a central part of the campaign was a "brand-jamming" contest.

The winners were announced a couple days ago. I rather like Jason Pearson's winning entries in the "overall brand jam" (video below) and print ad (above) categories. Enjoy! And if you'd like to send Hershey's a message yourself, you can do so here (via Change.org).