The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) has issued a statement in response to Greenpeace’s recent grocery store ranking, charging the activist group’s report is meaningless and immature.
NFI spokesman Gavin Gibbons described the organization as “childish,” and noted the annual report, which ranks major grocery store chains based on how hard the chains work at sourcing sustainable seafood, still doesn’t disclose its ranking formula or any other information that would lend legitimacy to its determinations.
“The report still uses a completely non-transparent system to apply random rankings to retailers and then delves into discussion about those rankings as if they have some sort of actual standing in the real world,” Gibbons wrote.
Gibbons further charged that Greenpeace is not producing this report for consumers, as the company claims; rather, it is merely playing up to its own financial backers.
“The real audience is big money contributors and foundations who Greenpeace must impress with all of its “progress,” Gibbons said. “But instead the foundations get quasi-fiction peppered with ratings created by a secret Rube Goldberg decimal generating machine.”
Gibbons argued that Greenpeace will always be holding the store chains to such a high standard that there will be no way any of them will ever be doing enough to satisfy the organization. Gibbons further singled out Greenpeace’s ranking of international chain Kroger near the bottom not due to scientific evidence, but because Kroger has had a long-standing relationship with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which Greenpeace sees as a rival.
“Once again WWF is in the boardroom making significant progress with companies while Greenpeace is in the parking lot protesting in costumes and being ignored by the multitudes who are embarrassed for them,” Gibbons wrote.
