by Juan Wilson on 13 March 2008
Is it like whitewashing or is it brainwashing? I think it's some of both.
"Green" hypocrisy is running rampant in America. It's worst practitioners are the corporations that are doing the most damage to our environment; the cars companies, oil industry, energy providers, big agbiz, etc.
Add to that list Foodland. Its CEo Jenai Wall uses the corporate website to exhort customers to take responsibility for their CO2 footprint and their legacy to the future.
Jenai quotes Cyrill Connolly in Enemies of Promise,
“We create the world in which we live; if that world becomes unfit for human life, it is because we tire of our responsibility.”
Well, Jenai, does reducing our carbon footprint include Foodland profiting from the unnecessarily cutting down century old Monkeypod trees in an historic village to make way for a parking lot where your customers can munch on cream puffs at your Beard Papa's dessert franchise?
Below is the message Jenai wants us to hear:
http://www.foodland.com/our_company/message_from_jenai.php
Message from Foodland CEO to the public
As we welcome spring this month, our newsletter focuses on “green” – fresh products and organic foods that are good for you and the environment. I have to smile thinking how times have changed! Growing up with an Irish father, green and March were synonymous with St. Patrick’s Day and “going green” simply meant wearing it.
When I lived on the Mainland and experienced the change in seasons, green took on the added meaning of the new, fresh growth that accompanied spring. Today, of course, green is most closely associated with the environment and the emphasis on “going green” has moved from recycling and a general desire to protect the environment to global warming and reducing our carbon footprint.
Indeed, it wasn’t long ago that many of us had not even heard the term “carbon footprint” and we certainly did not know what to do about it. We now understand that our carbon footprint is a measure of the effect our actions, lifestyle, and activities have on the environment in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. It is a means by which each of us can understand and conceptualize our personal contributions to global warming. Some of the
large contributors to our carbon footprint are travel and our use of electricity. But nearly everything we do – from what we eat to what we wear – has a direct or indirect impact on C02 emissions.
Why should we care about our carbon footprint? It is important to recognize that how we live and what we do today impacts future generations. Not only do we have the ability to do something about the effects of global warming, we have a responsibility to reduce it.
As author Cyrill Connolly wrote many years ago in Enemies of Promise, “We create the world in which we live; if that world becomes unfit for human life, it is because we tire of our responsibility.”
Being aware of our carbon footprint is the first step; taking action to reduce it is equally important. All of us should make a personal commitment to understand what we may do decrease our CO2 emissions. Ideas are everywhere and include replacing plastic bags with reusable ones, buying organic produce, purchasing local, turning off lights, unplugging phone chargers and other devices when not in use, raising the temperature on air conditioning, using
the dishwasher sparingly and hanging clothes to dry. Clearly, there are many things we can do, and the point is to start somewhere. For as Abraham Lincoln once said, “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
Jenai S. Wall
Chairman & CEO
Foodland Super Market, Ltd.
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Foodland Supermarkets
(tenants that are subsidiaries of the Sullivan Company, the parent of Foodland)
Malama Markets
Beard Papas
contact: Jenai Sullivan Wall CEO
email: services@foodland.com
Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf
contact: ecoffee@coffeebeanhawaii.com
phone: (800) 832-5323
address: 1945 South La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeses, CA
American Savings Bank
contact: Ronald Dobashi, Facility Manager
email: info@asbhawaii.com
phone: (800) 272-2566
fax: (808) 532-7000
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