Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
waves through the seafood industry. Most seafood companies of any size supply
Wal-Mart as a matter of survival. Wal-Mart's business is so important to many of
these companies that they employ representatives based in Bentonville, Arkansas,
where Wal-Mart's corporate headquarters is located. At the time of Wal-Mart's
announcement, many of these companies either had no knowledge of the MSC or
did not deal in certified seafood products.
Shortly after the announcement, Wal-Mart convened an extraordinary meeting
at its headquarters. Wal-Mart invited its seafood suppliers to meet with leading
members of the marine conservation community to foster better working relation-
ships. Company executives explained that their support for sustainable seafood was
part of Wal-Mart's broader environmental initiative, which had three goals: 100%
renewable energy, zero waste and sustainable products. For many of the conser-
vationists present, it was gratifying to see so many seafood suppliers taking note
and pledging their allegiance to sustainability, even though this was probably only
because Wal-Mart was insisting on it.
Shortly after Wal-Mart's groundbreaking announcement, the Compass Group
North America, the largest food service company in the Western Hemisphere with
$7.5 billion in revenues and more than 152 000 associates throughout the US,
Canada and Latin America, made a similar proclamation. The Compass Group an-
nouncement was the result of more than a year of negotiations with its subsidiary,
Palo Alto-based Bon Appetit Management Company and the Monterey Bay Aquar-
ium's Seafood Watch programme. Bon Appetit, an acknowledged source of inno-
vation within the Compass Group of companies, had been exposed to the principles
of sustainable seafood through its vendor agreement to operate the food service
facilities at the aquarium (see Chapter 17). In 2005, Bon Appetit and the aquarium
formed a partnership known as Making Waves aimed at educating Bon Appetit chefs
and clients, and ultimately persuading the entire Compass Group North America -
including its other subsidiaries - to make a commitment to buy its seafood from
sustainable sources. As a result, in February 2006, the Compass Group announced
its new policy and shortly thereafter convened a meeting of its culinary leaders at
the aquarium to learn more about sustainable seafood.
While the Compass Group's announcement initially was not as far-reaching as
Wal-Mart's commitment - for example, it made no mention of ultimately buying
only ecolabelled seafood - no one missed the fact that the leading companies in
the food retail and food service sectors had made back-to-back commitments to
sustainable seafood. Since these two sectors each account for approximately half
of the seafood sales in the United States, this amounted to an endorsement of the
sustainable seafood movement by the nation's biggest seafood buyers.
The simultaneous action of Wal-Mart and the Compass Group North America
triggered a tidal wave of similar announcements from their competitors and re-
lated businesses. Sysco, the $70 billion leader of the food distribution sector in the
United States, immediately began considering its role in supporting the sustainable
seafood movement. Sysco had long been the target of specific campaigns such as
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