We don't know why, it's just cheaper over there

The BBC seems a bit too eager here to report the line given to them by a U.K. seafood manufacturer--that shipping shrimp to Thailand and back to be shelled by hand somehow produces less carbon than the old method of shelling them by machine in Scotland. While the reporter does squeeze in a (not especially illuminating) quote from someone from Greenpeace, the overall credulous tone is disappointing.

Even worse, the piece completely ignores what should be a very obvious question: what does the fact that this company finds it more economical to send its shrimp on a 17,000-mile round trip than to keep it relatively local say about its labor practices over in Thailand?

Of course, then it'd be a story about human needs and the costs of globalization, instead of about The Environment. We all know the two areas of issues are at best unrelated, at worst in conflict w/ each other...