A.S. Urges Board of Trustees to Boycott Nestlé

Illustration By Corner Savage

During this month's Board of Trustees meeting, Associated Students (A.S.) Director of Sustainability Brooke Harrington and A.S. Vice-President Hesham Jarmakani presented a joint statement urging the Board to boycott Nestlé products at Santa Monica College (SMC) on Tuesday, March 5.

"Nestlé is a company that has shown time and time again that they lack basic levels of human empathy and environmental awareness in the face of corporate greed,” Harrington told the Board.

During the following A.S. Board meeting on Monday, March 11, Harrington and Jarmakani reported that members of the Board appeared to react favorably to their proposal.

"Before I had finished reading my letter, my time was up, but Chair Quinones-Perez offered me the chance to finish my statement, which I was later told was a rare occurrence,” Harrington said.

Jarmakani, who originally proposed the boycott, added, "I noticed [Board member] Dr. Aminoff nodding her head while Brooke was speaking about how Nestle's subsidiary Arrowhead has been extracting water from the San Gabriel Valley."

Nestlé is no stranger to controversy. From allegations of child labor to environmental harm, even documented cases of chattel slavery, Nestlé has been at the epicenter of numerous boycotts and lawsuits.

A report from Bloomberg states that in 2013, a Michigan judge "ruled against Nestlé, saying that data documenting three years of extraction by the company [Nestlé] showed a significant depletion of the area's streams and wetlands."

In 2015, the Desert Sun newspaper alleged that Nestlé had been extracting water from the San Bernardino National Forest with a permit that had expired in 1988. According to the California State Water Board, Nestlé extracts on average 62.6 million gallons of water per year from the San Bernardino National Forest alone.

According to a report from the Los Angeles Times, opponents have argued that Nestlé's practices could potentially cause harm to the environment and wildlife, especially in California, which has struggled with record-breaking droughts in recent years.

SMC's proposed boycott would focus primarily on Nestlé's water products, specifically the Arrowhead bottled water that is sold in vending machines and the water refill stations located throughout campus, which also use Nestlé water.

Jarmakani stated, "Our intentions with going forward [are] centered around non-sustainable practices and the denial of basic human rights."

According to Jarmakani, the next step will be to prepare a formal resolution to encourage the Board to include the boycott as an action item on the agenda for their next meeting.

"If the Trustees vote in favor of a boycott, the campus will then launch a bidding process (RFP) allowing outside companies the opportunity to compete for a contract, replacing Nestlé's," Jarmakani explained.

The A.S. has expressed some concerns over the boycott. "I think another potential concern/consequence of this boycott would be finding alternative items to replace those that are tainted by Nestlé. This could be reflected in a potential price increase for vending machine/bookstore items," Harrington said.

Harrington summarized why she believes SMC should boycott Nestlé products. She said, “As an institution that prides itself in fostering global citizenship, I believe it is imperative to hold our purchasing values to the standards we uphold for the entire school.”

The A.S. Board will know if the college has decided to move forward with the boycott during the next Board of Trustees meeting, which will take place on Tuesday, April 2.