While Lumber Liquidators Inc. held its Annual Meeting of Stockholders May 23 inside its Toano, Va.-headquarters, outside a number of Greenpeace protesters had parked a yellow delivery van with a likeness of the wood floor retailer's logo on its side that said "Rainforest Liquidators."
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While Lumber Liquidators Inc. held its Annual Meeting of Stockholders May 23 inside its Toano, Va.-headquarters, outside a number of Greenpeace protesters had parked a yellow delivery van with a likeness of the wood floor retailer's logo on its side that said "Rainforest Liquidators."
Photo courtesy of GreenpeaceBlogs.org.
Two more Greenpeace vehicles labeled "Forest Crimes Unit" were positioned in front of the headquarter entrance and blocked all vehicle ingress and egress.
Greenpeace told local TV station WAVY that it was protesting the stockholder meeting because the stockholders deserved to know what Greenpeace recently published after a two-year investigation: allegations that Lumber Liquidators, among others, purchased wood illegally cut from Brazil.
Lumber Liquidators released a statement denying the accusations in the report and reinforced its commitment to ensure proper sourcing of its products:
"At Lumber Liquidators, we take environmental compliance very seriously and we back our commitment to responsible sourcing with real action. The policies and procedures that we have in place for the sourcing, harvesting and manufacturing of all of our products are designed to meet or exceed legal requirements. Lumber Liquidators operates in a manner intended to ensure our company is a superior corporate citizen that seeks to adhere to all applicable laws, rules and regulations wherever we do business. As such, we demand that our business partners, suppliers and distributors meet our standards and operate in an ethical, legal and sustainable manner. In addition, we commit resources around the world to monitor our processes and compliance with environmental chain of custody regulations at each step of the way until the products reach our stores. Lumber Liquidators is committed to uncompromising integrity in how we conduct ourselves individually and as a company."
The protest ended after Greenpeace Forest Campaigner Daniel Brindis spoke with company executives for two hours, according to a Greenpeace-authored blog post.
"The activists succeeded in showing Lumber Liquidators and its shareholders that they need to take a hard look at the company's supply chain," Brindis said. "I spoke with the company executives in-depth about the problem of predatory logging and how it is threatening the vital ecosystem of the Amazon rainforest and the people that call it home."
The report released by Greenpeace earlier this month is the second report released in a year to allege the company purchases illegally sourced wood. The first report, authored by the Environmental Investigation Agency, claimed the company knowingly imported wood from Russia's protected Siberian tiger habitat.
After that report was released, federal agencies raided the company's headquarters and a retail store in Virginia last fall. A total of four lawsuits have been filed against Lumber Liquidators, two of which have been dismissed.