Dear Miles
Re: Fonterra’s new ‘Carbon Zero’ milk
Reading this week about the launch of Fonterra’s ‘Five anchor milks are now carbon zero’, we learned that this product claim would be achieved by gaining off-sets through funding a solar farm in India and a wind farm in New Caledonia.
In our opinion, the embracing of the ETS and the use of off-setting is being used simply as a greenwashing marketing tool and duping New Zealanders who perhaps don’t understand the nuance of offsetting on our country.
It’s the ETS and off-setting mentality that is currently ruining our rural communities, replacing good productive farms and displacing people that live and work there with carbon pine forests, that will, far from being a solution, grow old, rot and burn. A disaster of our own short sighted making.
At 50 Shades of Green we love renewable energy projects, unlike carbon farming, renewable energy projects are tangible. They provide jobs and are good for the environment. Really Fonterra? Funding a solar farm in India makes about as much sense as funding a dairy farming operation in China!
Cowshed roofs in New Zealand would surely be a better place to put solar panels, why not come up with a way to incentivise their installation here?
Everybody needs to do what they can to reduce pollution and fossil fuel usage, how inspirational if we could see our largest company lead by example and come up with some creative solutions that aren’t based on the ETS and all it’s perverse outcomes.
Regards
50 Shades of Green
To the point – thank you.
I am pleased to see this letter. So often, the opinions of “Farmers” and certainly Groundswell seems to speak for both dairy farmers and sheep & beef farmers. The realities and the detrimental effects on our beautiful environment differ vastly. The two groups need to be recognized as separate.