The Tar Sands

Located in Northern Alberta, the tar sands supply the United States and Canada with fossil fuel and are rapidly expanding to become the most environmentally destructive project on earth.

We believe that protecting the environment is everyone's responsibility, and investing our economy in a finite resource is simply not a sustainable option for future generations.

The Campaign

In June 2010, we took a stand against Canada's fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, the tar sands, and worked with the Rainforest Action Network to spread the word. This grassroots organization campaigns for the forests, their inhabitants and the natural systems that sustain life by transforming the global marketplace through education, grassroots organizing and non-violent direct action.

To symbolize all we have to lose by investing in the tar sands, our shop staff donned nothing but fake oil barrels and rallied our customers to sign a petition asking then-Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper to invest in green energy solutions. We also created a limited edition bath bomb called Wild Rose, also Alberta's provincial flower, with 100% of the purchase price being donated to Rainforest Action Network.

The Outcome

Our customers bought a whole bunch of Wild Roses for Rainforest Action Network! $42,000 worth, in fact. We also signed Dogwood Initiative to our Charity Pot program during the campaign and were able to make a donation of $10,000 through all Charity Pot purchases during that time. 24,015 petition signatures for Prime Minister Harper were collected in just a two-week campaign. The Tar Sands continue to expand and grow, but we must break free from fossil fuels. To learn more about this growing problem, visit ran.org.