Mattel, under siege, promises new rain forest packaging policy

Toy maker Mattel, under siege by environmental critics, announced Friday that it would develop a new policy to make its packaging suppliers “commit to sustainable forestry management practices.”

Greenpeace, which launched a global campaign against Mattel this week, called the announcement “encouraging” but added, “They’re not out of the woods yet. The document still needs to be written."

The announcement was the latest effort by the world’s largest toy company to contain any damage to its popular Barbie and Ken doll brands, as it was deluged by emails from critics around the world.

Mattel acknowledged receiving 83,000 emails, although Greenpeace said 200,000 had been sent from its servers as of midday Friday.

Greenpeace this week released a report, "Toying with Extinction," including laboratory analyses of packaging for Barbie dolls and other toys containing fiber from Indonesian rain forests. The group also unveiled documents tracing the supply chain from Mattel to Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), a Singapore company that has clear-cut vast swaths of the archipelago’s wildlife-rich forests.

In the first three days of the campaign, more than 700,000 people had viewed Greenpeace’s spoof videos of Ken breaking up with Barbie after watching her slaughter orangutans and tigers in “a shoot in some rain forest.” The video is translated into 18 languages.

El Segundo, Calif.-based Mattel did not name a date for adopting its new policy but said, “In addition to addressing current concerns about packaging sourcing, Mattel’s policy will also cover other wood-based products in its toy lines, such as paper, books and accessories.”

“Mattel has a long track record of playing responsibly across all areas of our business, which includes how we impact the world around us,” said Lisa Marie Bongiovanni, vice president of corporate affairs at Mattel. “While we don't have all the answers yet, we are working to make continual improvements."

Rolf Skar, Greenpeace’s senior forest campaigner, responded, however, “We also need to be sure that the world’s largest toy company is going to show leadership on this issue. That means acting immediately to stop dealing with suppliers linked to rain forest destruction, and ensuring they have rigorous standards for all of their products.”

He added that Greenpeace, which has offices in 41 countries, is “willing to help them develop this policy and answer their questions, but until then our campaign continues."

The Greenpeace campaign has spread across Facebook and Twitter.  Facebook on Friday pulled Greenpeace ads that used a likeness of Ken, after Mattel claimed copyright infringement.

Greenpeace spokesman James Turner said the group had paid $400 for the ads, which had produced 2 million impressions. Among the targets of the ads were the 900 people on Facebook who list their employer as Mattel.  “Our online team is pretty clever,” he added.

{UPDATE: Sat. June 11 7:45 a.m."We have not taken any actions to silence Greenpeace," Mattel said in a statement. "Nor have we requested the removal of Mattel’s intellectual property from their websites as they continue executing their campaign.  The commercial use of our copyrighted images has been a small piece of their campaign overall."]

Indonesia’s rain forests are the third-largest in the world after the Amazon and the Congo. But more than 40% of them have been cleared and burned in recent decades, mostly for paper products and palm oil.

Environmental groups, including Rainforest Action Network, Friends of the Earth, the World Wildlife Fund and many local Indonesian groups, as well as Greenpeace, have been pressuring the region's two giant pulp companies,  APP and Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL) to renounce their claims to clear huge new concessions.

The archipelago’s rain forests harbor scores of endangered species, including Sumatran tigers, orangutans, elephants and leopards.  But beyond their unparalleled biodiversity, rain forests store vast amounts of carbon, and when they are felled, carbon is released into Earth’s atmosphere, where it traps heat and contributes to climate change.

Indonesia is the third-biggest source of such greenhouse gases in the world, after the U.S. and China. Earlier this month, the Indonesian government agreed to a partial, two-year moratorium on forest clearing, after Norway pledged $1 billion to help the tropical nation preserve its forests. Norway, a major oil producer, has also pledged $1 billion to Brazil to help conserve the Amazon.

--Margot Roosevelt

Top photo: Barbie Fairytale Collection doll -- Made in Indonesia, purchased in the USA. Greenpeace released forensic evidence from an independent laboratory showing that the doll's packaging contained mixed tropical hardwood from Indonesian rain forests. Credit: Greenpeace

Bottom photo: Environmental activist Elise Nabors in a Barbie outfit, driving her "Barbiedozer," is stopped by a police officer half a block away from the Mattel building in El Segundo during a protest at Mattel headquarters Tuesday. Greenpeace has mounted a campaign to persuade the company to police its supply chain for rain forest products. Credit: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times 

Comments

[sue]

"No guts to stand up against eco-freaks."

No they just know it's right. You don't take down a vibrant, diverse rain forest that won't come back, and displace and destroy the unique wild life that depend on it, to make backing for some toy boxes.They just said ok, yes we can do something different and not be indifferent (dicks). Good for them. It's good that we know how our consuming affects the planet...even if the name calling persists. And people who care about saving eco-systems for future generations to enjoy, along with a myriad of other legitimate reasons, are not gone...thanks goodness...They just have a hard time being heard over the sound of chain saws and heavy equipment that come with the feeding frenzy of resources. So they have to keep making a legal noise. When we just get it, they wont have to go to court.

[Ash2theb]

Man this world is full of people who don't know what doing making up s...they can't get themselves out of trouble and when to late there nothing we can do about. If everyone did what they were suppose to be doing we can get a lot s... done without causing stuff that might kill us in the future but everyone is to lazy to change their habitats it's very disappointing and disgusting that am 20 years and has to come to this. Am not surprise this happen because what u don't know Mattel or any illegally operating company might hit you where it hurts and/or might come back around and cause u more pain like what will when u run of trees to make your packaging or the water is to polluted to point you can't dump anything into it because ur family might get sick and die and there goes the human race. Am daydreaming PEOPLE WAKE UP!!!

[Stephen]

@ Truth

Thanks alot. My out loud laughing at your response woke my wife up.

Mattel is not the worst packaging offender they are just a large American based target. The funny thing is they are very politically correct on social/enviornmental issues. They recently refused to donate to the Cub Scouts because of their position on not allowing openly gay leaders. (I agree that the scouts need to rethink this confused policy)

It warms my heart to see the Liberals eating their own kind. Keep the boycotts going you Liberals.

In reality I know the idiots that write "I won't by Mattel because of packaging" are not in the plastic doll market anyway.

[Patrick]

Mattel has tried to attract Asian customers into Asian stores with Mattel products made in China now, and the Chinese do not want or care for the America oriented products. Packaging is unimportant to the US consumer, as the product is made and shipped from China, no longer is mattel an American Company making American products, but cheap foreign junk made in China.

Package that!

[Olden Atwoody]

"Greenpeace spokesman James Turner said the group had paid $400 for the ads, which had produced 2 million impressions."

A few bucks can certainly skew the logical,

Two thoughts:

1. Good luck to Mattel to find a way to develop 'kid-proof' packaging that satisfies the raging hippies. We may see these toys placed out of reach of children, changing a traditional method of shopping, but probably just fine with the weirdos who hate gender-based toys in the first place.

2. The people that respond to such an on-line campaign are probably not toy buyers in the first place. I suspect this is a case of embarassing a fairly responsible manufacturer in order to publicize an agenda.

These people have the morality of the WikiLeaks crew, i.e. we think we know what's best for you, so do it or we distroy you. Wait - that was the Nazis. No, the COmmies. No, the Muslims... No, the Christians. The Dems. The Repubs.

Pardon me, I'm going outside to cut down a tree.

[Thomas46]

Wouldn't it be cool if Mattel cared enough before the libbies attacked?

Or maybe if the peeps managed the tree resource to begin with.

Money.

[Whoasy]

I didn't think Greenpiece still existed. And I wouldn't think that anyone would still give a poop about their leftist ideas.

[Truth]

California Chief is absolutely correct. How can we - as God fearing American people - force our children to suffer the horror of alternative disposable materials? Cheap sustainable disposable packaging is for little people and cowards. My child deserves to throw away packaging made from the finest tropical rainforest materials. Anything else is un-American and most probably communist (or at least socialist).

[Prof Josephine]

Good job Greenpeace. No doubt "California Chief" is a member of the LAFD or similar participant in the California fire industry that continues to bleed our citizens at the expense of our environment. Look up the story of Joseph Diliberti on LAtimes to learn more about this phenomenon.

[shadowpark]

@ California quief

You are right ,we need to go not quietly into that good night but unabashedly take what is our by manifest destiny and why not bring back slavery its our god given right as white god fearing Americans to destroy this world that took billions of year to be created and flush it down the toilet!
You sir are a quief of the greatest sort and I salute you with a triumphant blast from a rear end trumpet!

[California Chief]

So Mattel buckled under threats. No guts to stand up against eco-freaks.

[Package designer]

Yay for Greenpeace. Large corporations are under pressure to reduce costs and increase profitability, even if it comes at the expense of our unprotected natural environments. Thanks for bringing this to light. Without investigative work, we consumers (and package designers) do not know what is the source of the raw materials that are used in manufacturing. I doubt most Mattel even knew this was happening.

A sense of humor and irony made this so much more interesting.

[Bill]

You rock Greenpeace!

Make sure Mattel follows through. I won't stop my boycott until then.