Environmentalists SLAM Victoria's Secret at Two Stores with Giant Banner, Puppet, and In-Store Disruptions
8
To view videos of this action click
1
2
3
4
5
6
On Thursday, June 29th, 2006 Wetlands activists made Victoria's Secret feel the summer heat, slamming them with actions at their stores in the Manhattan Mall and on the corner of 34th Street and 6th Avenue. "Victoria", a fang-toothed, tree-consuming bra and panties monster puppet joined joined protesters as they raised a 120 square foot,banner, leafletted and chanted “What’s Victoria’s Secret? Forest Destruction!”, and stormed both locations to cause disruptions to alert customer's to Victoria's Secret complicity in forest destruction . The banner, held aloft on helium balloons, read “Victoria’s Secret: Stop Destroying For Catalogs! Use Recycled www.victoriasdirtysecret.net." Activists informed potiential Victoria's Secret custumers that the chain is responsible for printing of over 1 million catalogs every day (395 million per year) on unrecycled paper at the expense of endangered Canadian boreal forests and Southern US forests.
The protest is part of in an ongoing national campaign spearheaded by environmental organization ForestEthics in collaboration with local environmental groups throughout the US, demanding that Victoria’s Secret:
• End purchases from any company that is not identifying and halting logging in Endangered Forests in the Canadian Boreal;
• Maximize post-consumer recycled content in catalogs (Achieve 50% post-consumer recycled in five years);
• Ensure that all suppliers are shifting to Forest Stewardship Council certification;
• End the use of any forest products sourced from other endangered forests, like key areas of the Southern U.S.
Roughly a quarter of Victoria’s Secret’s catalog paper comes directly from North America’s endangered Great Boreal Forest, which stretches from Alaska to the Atlantic Ocean, The boreal plays a crucial role in the defense against global warming and in cleaning the air we breathe and the water we drink. An area the size of Manhattan is destroyed every day as a result of demand for forest products from companies like Victoria’s Secret.According to Wetlands Activism Collective’s Adam Weissman, “Victoria’s dirty Secret is that their catalogs are destroying endangered forests in Canada and the Southern US. Victoria’s Secret can set an example for all catalog producers by switching to recycled paper.”
As a result of pressure from environmentalists, Victoria’s Secret has announced that it will print its clearance catalogs, which account for approximately 10% of all of its catalogs, on a high post-consumer recycled content paper. Forest activists welcome this policy shift, but argue that this must be followed by a commitment to print the other 90% of its catalogs on high post-consumer recycled paper that does not come from Endangered Forests.
For more information, photos of demonstrations and the forests being destroyed by Victoria’s Secret, and copies of the ad campaign, visitwww.VictoriasDirtySecret.net.
|