Whole Foods Market, others, move to cut tar sands oil use

Whole Foods Market, the world’s biggest organic food chain, and Bed Bath & Beyond, are seeking to boycott fuel linked to Canada’s tar sands following a lobbying campaign by a U.S. environmental group.

ForestEthics said it wrote to all Fortune 500 companies six months ago, warning that the use of fuel originating from the oil sands puts their brand reputation at risk.

“The government and industry said there was no way to track which fuel came from oil sands,” Nikki Skuce of ForestEthics said. “Whole Foods discovered that they could.”

Skuce said the group is in discussions with a further 30 or so major U.S. corporations about boycotting the oil sands.

“Frankly, with the companies that have switched it wasn’t such a hard sell,” she said. “They didn’t want their names associated with such dirty fuel.”

Canada is home to the world's biggest reserves of tar sands and oil production from the sticky bitumen is forecast to increase this year as global demand for energy increases. Development of the sands has faced criticism from green groups for the impact on the environment and production of greenhouse gases.

Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods was able to track its supply chain for transportation fuels and found tar sands oil was being used in about 10% of its fuel supply. In one area it switched to an alternative supplier, though in the Rocky Mountains area a supplier is still using fuel originating from the oil sands.

"Wherever we can, wherever it's feasible we will avoid it," said spokeswoman Libba Letton. "Our leadership came to the decision as part of things we do every day to be better stewards of the environment."

The total vehicle miles driven by Whole Foods' internal fleet each year is approximately 21,615,000.

Whole Foods has 270 stores across North America and the United Kingdom.

Bed Bath & Beyond, a home accessories retailer, has also adopted a new policy encouraging transport providers to avoid oil sands fuel.

The company uses external transport companies and therefore said it will continue to push suppliers to move to cleaner fuels.

“Fuels from these refineries are deemed to have higher than normal (carbon) footprints and environmental and social impacts,” the Bed Bath & Beyond policy says.

“We will be following up with our service providers on this issue, through our bid process and those that we have update meetings with to continue to remind them of our position and concern."