U.S. retailers to join oilsands fuel boycott

A campaign to boycott Alberta-sourced gasoline has gained momentum after trendy clothing manufacturers and a major U.S. drugstore chain announced they would be avoiding oilsands-related fuels.

Clothiers The Gap, Timberland and Levi Strauss, as well as Walgreens, have joined a growing list of corporations choosing to avoid using gasoline refined from Canadian bitumen, according to reports Friday.

The move to less carbon-intensive fuels was sparked by an ongoing campaign by San Fransisco-based environmental group Forest Ethics, said Walgreens spokeswoman Tiffani Washington.

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Allegations of corporations using the campaigns to seem more environmentally sensitive don't ultimately matter, said a Sierra Club of Canada executive.

"I don't think it's important at this stage whether companies are doing this because they're jumping on a bandwagon to look good. The only question for us is are they actually doing something, and the answer is yes," said executive director John Bennett. "We think this is another indication of the effectiveness of talking about the need to have clean production and start phasing out the most carbon-intensive forms of fossil fuels, so it's very positive for us."