The pressure follows the collapse earlier this year of legislation that would have ensured UK businesses operate in an ethical and socially responsible manner.

The proposed Corporate Responsibility Bill, tabled by Labour MP Andy King, would have led to companies being obliged to publish annual reports outlining their social, environmental and economic impact. Company directors would also have been held legally responsible for a firm’s activities, but the government effectively “talked out’ the legislation during the bill’s second reading.

Green groups are targeting Tesco because of the supermarket’s links with controversial whaling in east Asia. Greenpeace and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) say the firm’s C Two-Network, a Japanese supermarket chain 95 per cent owned by Tesco PLC, sells products containing meat from whales, dolphins and porpoises.

Campaigners are encouraging consumers to bombard Tesco chiefs with complaints over the retail of these products because of concern over the future of species including minke, Bryde’s and sei whales. The EIA claims Japan’s coastal hunting is poorly regulated and unsustainable – hundreds of animals are slaughtered each year.

Tesco is also under fire over “appalling’ conditions at one of its largest pork suppliers; last year an investigation revealed widespread suffering and overcrowding inside a Bowes of Norfolk group factory, which supplies much of the retailer’s pork. Vegetarians International Voice For Animals (Viva!) has already held a day of action against the supermarket.

A Tesco spokesperson said: “We expect the highest standards from our suppliers and they are audited regularly to ensure these are met. We take allegations of this type extremely seriously and fully investigated them, as did the RSPCA. Neither Tesco nor the RSPCA found any animal welfare problems, and we will continue to monitor them to ensure high standards are maintained.’

Similarly, Marks & Spencer, which claims to operate with strict product sourcing criteria, faces outrage over a recent film showing thousands of ducks being reared in filthy conditions at a Manor Farm Ducklings establishment – the company supplies duck meat to the retailer. Graphic images distributed at recent demonstrations show dead and dying birds crammed into sheds without adequate water, and led to calls for a boycott of the company’s products.

The allegations come on the back of claims of a green “whitewash’ over advertising that campaigners say flies in the face of the company’s stated commitment to the environment. Recent ads boasted of fresh “jet-set’ pineapple juice arriving in M&S stores just 48 hours after leaving plantations in Ghana. Activists are encouraging consumers to contact the company and point out that aircraft are the most ecologically damaging form of transport, contributing huge levels of carbon dioxide linked to climate change.

M&S is no stranger to controversy, having been subjected to boycotts and protests over its sourcing of products from countries which have a poor human rights record. Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose have also faced consumer rage over the stocking of products sourced from unsustainable sources; Tesco was last year expelled from a leading environmental sourcing initiative after activists said it carried products made from illegally logged Indonesian timber.

Grassroots campaigners are planning Greenpeace-style actions this summer against stores which continue to stock dubious timber products. Campaigners, including the Oxford-based Corporate Watch, say the rise in consumer led, anti-corporate activity is a sign of growing frustration at the apparent unwillingness of retailers to clean up or take responsibility for unacceptable practices.

Video footage taken inside the premises of one of the largest pork suppliers to Tesco, the supermarket giant, has revealed conditions described as ‘appalling’ by animal rights campaigners.

The scenes were uncovered at Cherry Tree Farm in Attlesborough, which is part of the giant Bowes of Norfolk group. Bowes supplies thousands of kilograms of pork, bacon and processed meat to Tesco each year.

The video was shot in secret by animal rights group Vegetarians International Voice for Animals, Viva, as part of its long-running investigation into pig farming. Although there is no evidence of the company breaking any legal welfare guidelines, the scenes show the brutal reality of intensive pig farming.

Pregnant sows are held for weeks at a time in small farrowing crates – narrow metal cages only inches wider than the animal. The sows are unable to turn and can only stand up, lie down or suckle their piglets once they are born. The crates are designed to maximise productivity, and ultimately drive down the cost of meat.

Campaigners, who say their use leads to severe stress and abnormal behaviour in pigs, are calling for them to be outlawed. Pressure groups argue the conditions show that Tesco’s claims that its pork products come from animals enjoying a high standard of welfare are a ‘deception’.

Alistair Currie, campaigns officer at Viva, said: ‘The scenes inside Bowes pig farm are bad even by the low standards of intensive pig farms and provided clear evidence of animals suffering appallingly. Bowes are leading suppliers of pork to one of Britain’s top supermarket chains and claim to place emphasis on animal welfare; they should not therefore be rearing pigs in conditions like this for sale to the public.’

The findings will prove embarrassing to both Bowes and Tesco. On its website, Bowes boasts about holding RSPCA Freedom Food animal welfare accreditation, which is supposed to ensure that animals are reared free from discomfort, pain, injury and disease and have the freedom to express normal behaviour free of distress. It turns out that only some Bowes facilities are backed by the RSPCA and Cherry Tree Farm has not won accreditation.

Trevor Jarvis, chief executive of Bowes, who has examined the video, defended the standards of animal welfare at his farm. He said: ‘We care immensely about the pigs at our farm … The sores on the pigs were because the animals were ill, but they were being treated with medication. Sadly the pigs did not recover and were shot the next day.’

Jarvis said the film was made in August on one of the hottest days of the year and therefore the pigs had been wallowing in mud to get cool, as they do in the wild. He said the animals were startled by the intruder at night shining lights into their eyes. Jarvis said the dead animals were stillborn. He said the sows had given birth at night, and the farmhands had not had a chance to remove the carcasses.

He did accept that the farm was ‘out of order’ for allowing maggots to eat the flesh of one carcass. He said the farmhand responsible had been given a verbal warning.

Tesco was also shown the evidence and launched an inquiry. A spokesman said: ‘We expect the highest standards from our suppliers and they are audited regularly to ensure these are met. We take allegations of this type extremely seriously and fully investigated them, as did the RSPCA. Neither Tesco nor the RSPCA found any animal welfare problems, and we will continue to monitor them to ensure high standards are maintained.’

The RSPCA confirmed they had since visited the farm and are satisfied the problems have been dealt with.

According to campaigners, up to 95 per cent of the 16 million pigs reared each year for meat are factory-farmed, with many kept in confined farrowing crates. Bowes, which has been involved in meat production for over 40 years, is one of Britain’s largest suppliers of pork, selling meat for use in pies, sausages and processed meat.

The company, which employs more than 600 people and has an annual turnover of over £30 million, is Tesco’s major UK-based pork supplier, providing pork cuts for all of the chain’s ‘Finest’ range, processing 50 per cent of its ‘Organic’ and ‘Tender Select’ ranges and a substantial part of its ‘Standard’ range, as well as providing meat for sale at the chain’s over-the-counter service.

The Indonesian Government banned all cutting and export of ramin wood in 2001, yet Red Pepper has learnt that a number of British companies continue to import cues made from ramin for supply to hundreds of pubs, clubs and retail outlets, including Argos which advertises ramin cues for sale at 7.99. The timber is smuggled into China by criminal gangs before being manufactured into cues for export to the west.

Environmentalists have reacted with fury to the revelation which will come as a blow to the UK authorities who in 2002 signed a groundbreaking bilateral agreement with the Indonesian Government promising to crackdown on the trade in plundered timber between the two countries.

Indonesia is home to around 10% of the world’s remaining tropical forests and home to many rare and endangered species including the Orangutan, Sumatran tiger, Sumatran rhinoceros, clouded leopard and sun bear. Pressure groups such as the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) claim that over two million hectares of Indonesian rainforest is being destroyed each year by logging and that by 2010 virtually all the country’s lowland forests will have disappeared.

Illegal logging in Indonesia has been linked to widespread corruption and human rights abuses, with highly organised criminal gangs – dubbed the timber barons by environmentalists -brutally controlling the lucrative trade in stolen timber, much of it, including the highly prized ramin wood, plundered from inside supposedly protected forest areas.

In Central Kalimantan’s Tanjung Puting National Park – one of the largest conservation forests in Indonesia – millions of cubic metres of ramin trees are chopped down, hauled out and sold illegally each year, devastating the area’s rich ecology and costing the country’s economy millions of pounds in lost revenue. Those opposed to the activities of the logging cartels have faced violence and intimidation.

Ramin is a tropical hardwood only found in the swamp areas of Borneo, Sumatra and in the peninsular region of Malaysia and is classified under CITES as a vulnerable tree species. Once processed it can fetch a $1000 per cubic metre on the international market for use in picture frames, wood blinds, decorative mouldings as well as pool cues.

Much of the stolen timber used in the cues destined for the UK is believed to be exported to China where the cues are manufactured before being dispatched to the west. Red Pepper has learnt that at least four key companies are importing ramin cues into the UK for distribution to coin machine operators contracted by brewery groups to supply their pub games equipment.

Pool is one of the UK’s favourite pastimes, with over 5.2 million people playing the game each week on some 62,000 tables in public houses, clubs, hotels and in private homes. According to industry sources around 99 in every 100 cues used in British pubs are made from ramin.

Devon based Pot Black Ltd distributes cues by mail order to high street outlets including Argos, Littlewoods, Toys R Us and John Lewis. Cuecraft Ltd of Nottingham supplies snooker club chains with ramin cues supplied from China; the Merseyside based Leisure Services Group also imports them.

Another importer of ramin cues is Bristol Coin Exchange (BCE) / Critical Place Limited. The company, which sponsors leading snooker players Ronnie O’Sullivan and Jimmy White, is understood to import around 100, 000 cues each year from a Taiwanese owned factory in Xiamen, China.

Most of the companies contacted were unaware they needed permits to import ramin. David Nichols, of BCE / Critical Place Ltd, said his company had switched to an alternative timber source.

Under CITES legislation, companies importing ramin products must hold the appropriate permits guaranteeing that the wood comes from sustainable sources. But because ramin only grows in Indonesia and Malaysia, where investigations have discovered that Indonesian ramin is frequently laundered illegally, pressure groups maintain that no ramin imports can be trusted to have come from ecologically friendly sources.

Sam Lawson, of the EIA, said: “I find it shocking that wood from rare and endangered tropical trees is being used for cheap throw-away cues. This is only possible because these trees are being stolen, often from national parks.

“But what is more shocking is that ramin is a special case. Millions of pounds worth of illegal timber enters the UK every week and for most of this wood there is no UK law stopping companies from importing and selling it. New laws are urgently needed Europe wide to ban the import of all timber which was illegally sourced.”

www.eia-international.org