Lego has bowed to pressure from Greenpeace, reportedly agreeing to drop supplier Asia Pulp and Paper, and the toy company says it will only use packaging material certified by the Forest Stewardship Council from now on.
The environmental group last month accused Lego, Hasbro, Mattel and Disney of using packaging material sourced from trees cleared out of the Indonesian rainforest.
Greenpeace pressed all the toy companies to stop buying paper products from APP – which the group called the worst forest offender in Indonesia – and any companies connected to APP. The non-profit also called on the companies to implement new sustainable procurement policies for purchase of all pulp and paper products.
Lego has now announced that it is aiming to reduce the amount of packaging material it uses; where possible use only recycled materials; and where a recycled option is not possible, use only FSC-certified fibers.
Greenpeace says it was informed by Lego that these rules will prohibit the company from buying packaging materials from APP.
Greenpeace welcomed the news in a blog on its website. The environmental group also used the opportunity to pour varying amounts of scorn on the other three toy companies who have differed in their responses to the APP allegations.
Hasbro, maker of Transformers, has instructed suppliers to stop using APP. But Greenpeace says that rather than take bold steps toward championing deforestation, the firm has fallen “back on a weak sustainability announcement made in 2010.”
In June the green activist group scaled Mattel’s headquarters and unfurled a banner featuring a picture of toy Ken that read, “Barbie, it’s over. I don’t date girls that are into deforestation.” The next day, Mattel released a statement confirming that it had put a hold on purchasing supplies that originate from APP, and pledging to create a sustainable procurement policy.
But Greenpeace has criticized the announcement’s lack of timelines and hard figures. The environmental group chastised, “Barbie has admitted she has a deforestation habit, but is not out of the woods yet.”
Disney has made no announcement on deforestation, according to Greenpeace.
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(Source: www.environmentalleader.com )