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Whole Foods Market (WFMI) Reports Record Q1 Earnings

Whole Foods market (WFMI), the largest US-based retailer of natural and organic foods, said this is the first time in its history to record over US$1 billion in sales in a quarter and due to the strong growth has raised its earnings forecast for the year. FY04 Q1 revenues increased 21% to US$1.1 billion from US$0.9 billion in the same quarter last year due to an 8% increase in square footage growth and a 14.7% increase in same store sales growth. Its earnings for the period grew 51% to a record US$38.7 million from US$25.6 million, or to US$0.60 per share from US$0.42 per share. In Southern California, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union were on strike during the last fourteen weeks of the sixteen-week quarter. Nineteen of the Company's stores experienced an increase in sales due to the strike, 17 of which are in the comparable store base. Excluding the stores positively impacted by the strike, comparable store sales increased 12.8% for the quarter. The Company attributes the above-average increase in net income and earnings per share to the stronger-than-expected sales across the country, a positive contribution from the Harry's stores and facilities compared to a […]

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Congolese Rainforest Zoning for Logging Protested

Author: Environment News Service Provider: SustainableBusiness.com LONDON, UK, February 12, 2004 (ENS) – More than 100 environment, development, and human rights groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) today called on the World Bank to stop plans for economic development of the country that would carve up the world's second largest remaining rainforest into industrial logging concessions. Internal World Bank documents obtained by the Rainforest Foundation and shared with the DRC groups reveal that the bank intends to "create a favorable climate for industrial logging" in the Congo, and envisions a 60 fold increase in the countrys timber production. In a statement today the groups said plans for the development of DRCs forests would have major repercussions for the rights and livelihoods of millions of Congolese citizens, with serious and irreversible impacts on the forest environment. Covering around 1.3 million square kilometers, the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo are the largest in the world after Amazonia, and have so far largely been spared extensive destruction. An estimated 35 million people live in and around these forests, including Bantu farmers, and Twa and Mbuti hunter-gatherer Pygmies. From 1998 the deadliest war in Africa's history has torn the country […]

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Five U.S. Utilities Meet Conservation Group's Carbon Pledge

By J.R. Pegg Author: Environment News Service Provider: SustainableBusiness.com WASHINGTON, DC, February 12, 2004 (ENS) – Conservationists eager to see the federal government tackle global warming were encouraged Wednesday by the decision of five electric power companies to support a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide emissions. The companies combined serve more than seven million power consumers. They are the first to answer the clean energy challenge set forth by the World Wildlife Fund, which warns that large emissions reductions are needed to curb global warming. "The survival of over a million species and many of the world's most biologically rich natural areas may hang in the balance, depending on whether we act responsibly now or continue to ignore global warming," said Ginette Hemley, managing vice president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Most scientists believe that if human emissions of greenhouse gases are left unchecked, there is a 90 percent probability that surface temperatures on Earth will rise between 1.7 to 4.9 degrees Celsius (3 to 8.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. This will result in rising sea levels, the melting of the polar icecaps, erratic and severe weather patterns, and a host of other environmental problems that could have far […]

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