Bed, Bath & Beyond backs away from boycott

The boycott is down to one. A day after environmental activist group ForestEthics bragged that two major U.S. retailers - Whole Foods Market and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. - had agreed to spurn fuel made from oil sands bitumen, Bed Bath & Beyond is distancing itself from an effort some had described as "greenwashing." "Bed Bath & Beyond has not 'rejected' or otherwise 'banned' our third-party transportation providers from using fuels from Canadian tar sands," the company said in a release yesterday. "In our communication with our providers, we incorrectly communicated a desire to limit or avoid fuels from Canadian tar sands." The company has come under fire in Alberta, where businesses and angry consumers have taken to talk radio stations and local newspaper pages to pledge their own boycott of Bed Bath & Beyond. Whole Foods doesn't have a presence in the province. BBBY (Nasdaq) rose 85 cents (U.S.) to $39.66. WFMI (Nasdaq) rose 76 cents to $29.21.