Avon and the oil sands

Who's the ding dong now, Avon?

Calgary Herald December 3, 2010 9:36 AM Comments (2)

Looking good is what Avon is all about, so it's not surprising that a cosmetics giant with annual revenues of $10 billion is concerned about its image. That, after all, is the motive behind Avon's boycott of fuel derived from Alberta's oilsands -- looking good. Never mind that oil banned from Alberta -- the most regulated and transparently sourced oil on the planet -- will have to be replaced by oil from some despotic regime but, hey, maybe you can put lipstick on a pig.


"Avon recognizes its responsibility to the environment and the world's forests," said Tod Arbogast, Avon's vice-president of sustainability and corporate responsibility. Gosh, you'd think that Avon CEO Andrea Jung is sitting around in her high heels, jumbo pearls and scarlet lipstick singing Kumbaya as she pulls down her $9 million pay package,


Avon, along with retailer LUSH and Canadian trucking company Concord Transportation, are the latest to join San Francisco-based Forest Ethics' misguided boycott of oilsands derived fuel. "Canada's tarsands are an unethical source of fuel for shipping LUSH products," explained Shama Alexander, LUSH's environmental officer. If Alexander really wants to talk ethics, we recommend the book Ethical Oil -- the Case for Canada's Oilsands, by Ezra Levant.


Big Beauty taking on Big Oil is a delicious thing to watch. Avon, one of several companies accused of "pinkwashing" by Stacy Malkan in her book Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry, has more than 5.5 million independent sales representatives driving around ( "Ding, dong. Avon calling!").


We wonder how they feel about the counter-boycott of Avon Products being urged by the Alberta Enterprise Group, just in time for Christmas.


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Ok Avon Asshats (as my cyber-buddy would put it), here's the facts:


Oil sands GHG emissions were 37.2 Mt (1 Mt = 1 million tonnes) in 2008. This equals:


•15 per cent of Albertan emissions

•5 per cent of Canadian emissions

•less than 0.1 per cent of global emissions

Canada's total emissions grew by 155 Mt between 1990 and 2007, with oil sands emissions responsible for 14 per cent (22 Mt) of this increase; transportation was responsible for 36 per cent (55 Mt).

For more information please visit the following link.

http://www.oilsands.alberta.ca/

There was also a pilot flying in to Calgary last summer that stated 'the haze you see over Calgary is from Alberta's tar sands.'  Ok, butt-head.  First thing is that the oil sands happen to be a good 8 hour drive from here. And if you had checked your facts before opening your mouth, you would have known that the haze hanging over Calgary was from a series of very serious forest fires raging in our provincial neighbor BC!