Fish and Game's Martin Taylor says Fonterra have a long history of delaying real action on the issue of how dairy intensification is harming New Zealand's waterways. (Photo: iStock)

Environmental groups call for action rather than words from Fonterra

Author: Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2017, 6:36AM

Fonterra is being accused of greenwashing after the company announced its planned environmental targets.

The dairy giant is vowing to improve the nation's waterways and drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030.

However, Fish & Game has said the promises are long overdue ploy to restore public support.

CEO Martin Taylor said cow numbers have soared and our environment's suffered since the co-operative was cropped up 16 years ago.

"One of the tactics, when you're in their position, is to delay things and make it look like your doing something until you can go back to doing what you were doing before."

He said that their targets are ambitious.

"They want to keep it within sustainable limits. The big question is how do we set those limits, and they worked tirelessly to make sure those limits are higher than what environmental groups and Fish and Game want, and that's why we see that so many, you know 80 percent of our lowland streams are in a bad way."

Taylor said the company is desperate to restore public support for dairy because million dollar TV ads aren't fooling anyone.

"This is serious pollution, the clean green image that Fonterra uses to sell our goods overseas, is being undermined by the very company, so we've got a long way to go and I hope and I trust that we will see some more concrete actions than words, but at this stage it is looking like just the next tactic in their big PR campaign."