Environmental impact of palm oil
Encyclopedia
Palm oil
, produced from the oil palm
, is a basic source of income for many farmers in South East Asia, Central and West Africa, and Central America. It is locally used as a cooking oil, exported for use in many commercial food and personal care products and is converted into biofuel. It produces up to 10 times more oil per unit area as soyabeans, rapeseed
or sunflower
s. Oil palms produce 38% of vegetable oil output on 5% of the world’s vegetable-oil farmland. Palm oil is under increasing scrutiny in relation to its effects on the environment
.
As of 2006, the cumulative land area of palm oil plantations is approximately 11000000 hectares (42,471.2 sq mi). In 2005 the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, responsible for about half of the world's crop, estimated that they manage about half a billion perennial carbon-sequestering
palm trees. Demand for palm oil has been rising and is expected to climb further.
Between 1967 and 2000 the area under cultivation in Indonesia expanded from less than 2000 square kilometres (772.2 sq mi) to more than 30000 square kilometres (11,583.1 sq mi). Deforestation in Indonesia for palm oil (and illegal logging) is so rapid that a 2007 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report said that most of the country’s forest might be destroyed by 2022. The rate of forest loss has declined in the past decade.
Global production is forecast at a record 46.9m tonnes in 2010, up from 45.3m in 2009, with Indonesia providing most of the increase.
, and forest fires, including those associated with the rapid spread of palm oil plantations. There is growing concern that this will be harmful to the environment in several ways:
. Forest removal and bog drainage to make way for plantations releases this carbon.
Environmental groups such as Greenpeace
claim that this deforestation
produces far more emissions than biofuels remove. Greenpeace identified Indonesian peatlands, unique tropical forests whose dense soil can be burned to release carbon emissions, that are being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. They represent massive carbon sinks, and they claim their destruction already accounts for four percent of annual global emissions.
Greenpeace recorded peatland destruction in the Indonesian province of Riau on the island of Sumatra
, home to 25 percent of Indonesia's palm oil plantations. Growers plan to expand the area under concession by more than 28500 square kilometres (11,003.9 sq mi) which would deforest half of the province. Greenpeace claims this would have devastating consequences for Riau's peatlands, which have already been degraded by industrial development and store a massive 14.6 billion tonnes of carbon, roughly one year's greenhouse gas emissions.
Research conducted by Greenpeace through its Forest Defenders Camp in Riau documents how a major Indonesian palm oil producer is engaging in large-scale, illegal destruction of peatland in flagrant violation of an Indonesian presidential order, as well as national forestry regulations. Palm oil from peatland is fed into the supply chain
for global brands. FoE and Greenpeace both calculate that forests and peatlands that are replaced by palm oil plantations release more carbon dioxide than is saved by replacing diesel with biofuel
s.
Environmentalists and conservationists have been called upon to become palm oil farmers themselves, so they can use the profits to invest in their cause. It has been suggested that this is a more productive strategy than the current confrontational approach that threatens the livelihoods of millions of smallholders.
In January 2008, the CEO of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal stating that Malaysia was aware of the need to pursue a sustainable
palm oil industry.
2007-2008, the United Nations Development Programsays production of palm oil in West-Africa is largely sustainable, mainly because it is undertaken on a smallholder level without resort to diversity-damaging monoculture
. The United Nations Food and Agriculture program is encouraging small farmers across Africa to grow palm oil, because the crop offers opportunities to improve livelihoods and incomes for the poor.
, Unilever
, Cargill
, Procter & Gamble
, Nestle
, Kraft
and Burger King
, are driving the demand for new palm oil supplies, partly for products that contain non-hydrogenated
solid vegetable fats, as consumers now demand fewer hydrogenated oils in food products that were previously high in trans fat
content.
Friends of the Earth
concluded that the increase in demand also comes from biofuel
, with producers now looking to use palm as a source.
However, Greenpeace has concluded that "first generation" biodiesel extracted from new palm oil plantations may not on balance reduce emissions. If wood from forests cleared for palm plantations is burned instead of used for biodiesel, leaving forests untouched may keep more carbon out of the air.
Although palm oil has a comparatively high yield, alternative vegetable fuel oil
sources with such as jatropha
may have a better net effect. Although palm requires less manual labor to harvest a given amount of oil than jatropha, the latter grows well in more marginal areas and requires less water.
accuses major multinational companies of turning a blind eye to peatland destruction to supply low cost vegetable oil.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
, founded in 2004, gathers growers, processors, food companies, investors and NGOs to address this problem. Its purpose is to prod the industry into producing "sustainable" palm oil, product that is certified as not involving the destruction of important areas.
Certified supply and demand have both grown slowly. In the first year of trading only 30% of sustainable oil was sold as such. In 2010, sustainable purchases represented most of the 2 million certified tonnes produced. RSPO has struggled to set standards for greenhouse-gas emissions for plantations. Its members account for only 40% of production.
Helped by $1 billion from Norway, In May, Indonesia announced a two-year moratorium on new concessions to clear natural forests and peatlands and its own rival to the RSPO, which is expected to restrict all producers.
projects through the Clean Development Mechanism
; however the reputational risk associated with unsustainable palm plantations in Indonesia has now made many funds wary of investing there.
, an RSPO member, committed to use only palm oil which is certified as sustainable, by ensuring that the large companies and smallholders that supply it convert to sustainable production by 2015. This policy was in part a response to a Greenpeace
-staged event which dispatched activists dressed as orang-utans to Unilever’s offices in London, Merseyside, in Rome and in Rotterdam. Dove, one of the company’s best-known brands, was singled out by name.
Nestlé
a Swiss food giant, buys only 320,000 tons of palm oil a year and is an RSPO member. A 2010 spoof online advertisement shows an office worker eating an orang-utan finger made to look like a KitKat. Before the "ad", it had begun buying certified oil, but planned to limit itself to certified product only in 2015. On May 17, 2010, after 1.5 million viewings and 200,000 protest e-mails, Nestlé suspended all purchases from Sinar Mas and other suppliers running “high-risk plantations or farms linked to deforestation”. Nestlé recruited a Swiss charity, The Forest Trust (TFT), to review its supply chain, auditing every supplier.
World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) publishes an annual scorecard of the palm-oil policies of 59 European companies. As of 2009, twelve companies including giant retailer Metro
, tied for worst, scoring 0. Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer
and Migros
achieved the highest scores.
In 2010, the Nature Conservancy took representatives of America’s National Farmers Union and the American Farmland Trust to Brazil to see how illegal forest clearance was “hurting US businesses by flooding markets with cheap and unsustainable products”. A new report from David Gardiner & Associates, a consultancy, says that protecting the 13000000 hectares (50,193.3 sq mi) of mostly tropical forest that are lost annually to timber, cattle and agricultural production would boost American agricultural revenue by as much as $190 billion-270 billion between 2012 and 2030.
Palm oil
Palm oil, coconut oil and palm kernel oil are edible plant oils derived from the fruits of palm trees. Palm oil is extracted from the pulp of the fruit of the oil palm Elaeis guineensis; palm kernel oil is derived from the kernel of the oil palm and coconut oil is derived from the kernel of the...
, produced from the oil palm
Oil palm
The oil palms comprise two species of the Arecaceae, or palm family. They are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil. The African Oil Palm Elaeis guineensis is native to West Africa, occurring between Angola and Gambia, while the American Oil Palm Elaeis oleifera is native to...
, is a basic source of income for many farmers in South East Asia, Central and West Africa, and Central America. It is locally used as a cooking oil, exported for use in many commercial food and personal care products and is converted into biofuel. It produces up to 10 times more oil per unit area as soyabeans, rapeseed
Rapeseed
Rapeseed , also known as rape, oilseed rape, rapa, rappi, rapaseed is a bright yellow flowering member of the family Brassicaceae...
or sunflower
Sunflower
Sunflower is an annual plant native to the Americas. It possesses a large inflorescence . The sunflower got its name from its huge, fiery blooms, whose shape and image is often used to depict the sun. The sunflower has a rough, hairy stem, broad, coarsely toothed, rough leaves and circular heads...
s. Oil palms produce 38% of vegetable oil output on 5% of the world’s vegetable-oil farmland. Palm oil is under increasing scrutiny in relation to its effects on the environment
Environment (biophysical)
The biophysical environment is the combined modeling of the physical environment and the biological life forms within the environment, and includes all variables, parameters as well as conditions and modes inside the Earth's biosphere. The biophysical environment can be divided into two categories:...
.
Statistics
An estimated 1.5 million small farmers grow the crop in Indonesia, along with about 500,000 people directly employed in the sector in Malaysia, plus those connected with related industries.As of 2006, the cumulative land area of palm oil plantations is approximately 11000000 hectares (42,471.2 sq mi). In 2005 the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, responsible for about half of the world's crop, estimated that they manage about half a billion perennial carbon-sequestering
CO2 sequestration
Carbon sequestration is the capture of carbon dioxide and may refer specifically to:* "The process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and depositing it in a reservoir." When carried out deliberately, this may also be referred to as carbon dioxide removal, which is a form of geoengineering.*...
palm trees. Demand for palm oil has been rising and is expected to climb further.
Between 1967 and 2000 the area under cultivation in Indonesia expanded from less than 2000 square kilometres (772.2 sq mi) to more than 30000 square kilometres (11,583.1 sq mi). Deforestation in Indonesia for palm oil (and illegal logging) is so rapid that a 2007 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report said that most of the country’s forest might be destroyed by 2022. The rate of forest loss has declined in the past decade.
Global production is forecast at a record 46.9m tonnes in 2010, up from 45.3m in 2009, with Indonesia providing most of the increase.
Environmental issues
Rising demand is driving owners to clear tropical forest to plant oil palms. According to UNEP, at the current rate of intrusion into Indonesian national parks, it is likely that many protected rain forests will be severely degraded by 2012 through illegal hunting and trade, loggingIllegal logging
Illegal logging is the harvest, transportation, purchase or sale of timber in violation of laws. The harvesting procedure itself may be illegal, including using corrupt means to gain access to forests; extraction without permission or from a protected area; the cutting of protected species; or the...
, and forest fires, including those associated with the rapid spread of palm oil plantations. There is growing concern that this will be harmful to the environment in several ways:
- Significant greenhouse gasGreenhouse gasA greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...
emissions. Deforestation, mainly in tropical areas, accounts for up to one-third of total anthropogenic emissions, and is a driver toward dangerous climate changeAvoiding Dangerous Climate ChangeThe related terms "avoiding dangerous climate change" and "preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" date to 1995 and earlier, in the Second Assesment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change and previous science it cites.In 2002, the United Nations...
. - Habitat destruction, leading to the demise of critically endangered speciesEndangered speciesAn endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...
(e.g. the Sumatran tigerSumatran TigerThe Sumatran tiger is a tiger subspecies that inhabits the Indonesian island of Sumatra and has been classified as critically endangered by IUCN in 2008 as the population is projected at 176 to 271 mature individuals, with no subpopulation having an effective population size larger than 50...
, the Asian rhinocerosRhinocerosRhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....
, and the Sumatran OrangutanSumatran OrangutanThe Sumatran orangutan is one of the two species of orangutans. Found only on the island of Sumatra, in Indonesia, it is rarer and smaller than the Bornean orangutan. The Sumatran orangutan grows to about tall and in males...
.)
- Reduced biodiversityBiodiversityBiodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
, including damage to biodiversity hotspotBiodiversity hotspotA biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with a significant reservoir of biodiversity that is under threat from humans.The concept of biodiversity hotspots was originated by Norman Myers in two articles in “The Environmentalist” , revised after thorough analysis by Myers and others in...
s. - Destruction of cash crops, such as fruit and rubber trees in SarawakSarawakSarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , Sarawak is situated on the north-west of the island. It is the largest state in Malaysia followed by Sabah, the second largest state located to the North- East.The administrative capital is Kuching, which...
, SabahSabahSabah is one of 13 member states of Malaysia. It is located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo. It is the second largest state in the country after Sarawak, which it borders on its southwest. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south...
and KalimantanKalimantanIn English, the term Kalimantan refers to the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, while in Indonesian, the term "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo....
and BorneoBorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
, that belong to indigenous peoples (the DayakDayak peopleThe Dayak or Dyak are the native people of Borneo. It is a loose term for over 200 riverine and hill-dwelling ethnic subgroups, located principally in the interior of Borneo, each with its own dialect, customs, laws, territory and culture, although common distinguishing traits are readily...
), despite their frequent objections.
Greenhouse gas emissions
Damage to peatland, partly due to palm oil production, is claimed to contribute to environmental degradation, including four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and eight percent of all global emissions caused annually by burning fossil fuels, due to the clearing of large areas of rainforest for palm oil plantations. Many Indonesian and Malaysian rainforests lie atop peat bogs that store great quantities of carbonCarbon
Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...
. Forest removal and bog drainage to make way for plantations releases this carbon.
Environmental groups such as Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
claim that this deforestation
Deforestation
Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a nonforest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use....
produces far more emissions than biofuels remove. Greenpeace identified Indonesian peatlands, unique tropical forests whose dense soil can be burned to release carbon emissions, that are being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. They represent massive carbon sinks, and they claim their destruction already accounts for four percent of annual global emissions.
Greenpeace recorded peatland destruction in the Indonesian province of Riau on the island of Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
, home to 25 percent of Indonesia's palm oil plantations. Growers plan to expand the area under concession by more than 28500 square kilometres (11,003.9 sq mi) which would deforest half of the province. Greenpeace claims this would have devastating consequences for Riau's peatlands, which have already been degraded by industrial development and store a massive 14.6 billion tonnes of carbon, roughly one year's greenhouse gas emissions.
Research conducted by Greenpeace through its Forest Defenders Camp in Riau documents how a major Indonesian palm oil producer is engaging in large-scale, illegal destruction of peatland in flagrant violation of an Indonesian presidential order, as well as national forestry regulations. Palm oil from peatland is fed into the supply chain
Supply chain
A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Supply chain activities transform natural resources, raw materials and components into a finished product that is delivered to...
for global brands. FoE and Greenpeace both calculate that forests and peatlands that are replaced by palm oil plantations release more carbon dioxide than is saved by replacing diesel with biofuel
Biofuel
Biofuel is a type of fuel whose energy is derived from biological carbon fixation. Biofuels include fuels derived from biomass conversion, as well as solid biomass, liquid fuels and various biogases...
s.
Environmentalists and conservationists have been called upon to become palm oil farmers themselves, so they can use the profits to invest in their cause. It has been suggested that this is a more productive strategy than the current confrontational approach that threatens the livelihoods of millions of smallholders.
National differences
Indonesia and Malaysia
In the two countries responsible for over 80% of world oil palm production, Indonesia and Malaysia, smallholders account for 35–40% of the total area of planted oil palm and as much as 33% of the output. Elsewhere, as in West African countries that produce mainly for domestic and regional markets, smallholders produce up to 90% of the annual harvest.In January 2008, the CEO of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal stating that Malaysia was aware of the need to pursue a sustainable
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
palm oil industry.
Africa
In Africa, the situation is very different compared to Indonesia or Malaysia. In its Human Development ReportHuman Development Report
The Human Development Report is an annual milestone publication by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme .-History:...
2007-2008, the United Nations Development Programsays production of palm oil in West-Africa is largely sustainable, mainly because it is undertaken on a smallholder level without resort to diversity-damaging monoculture
Monoculture
Monoculture is the agricultural practice of producing or growing one single crop over a wide area. It is also known as a way of farming practice of growing large stands of a single species. It is widely used in modern industrial agriculture and its implementation has allowed for large harvests from...
. The United Nations Food and Agriculture program is encouraging small farmers across Africa to grow palm oil, because the crop offers opportunities to improve livelihoods and incomes for the poor.
Increasing demand
Food and cosmetics companies, including ADMArcher Daniels Midland
The Archer Daniels Midland Company is a conglomerate headquartered in Decatur, Illinois. ADM operates more than 270 plants worldwide, where cereal grains and oilseeds are processed into products used in food, beverage, nutraceutical, industrial and animal feed markets worldwide.ADM was named the...
, Unilever
Unilever
Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....
, Cargill
Cargill
Cargill, Incorporated is a privately held, multinational corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Founded in 1865, it is now the largest privately held corporation in the United States in terms of revenue. If it were a public company, it would rank, as of 2011, number 13 on the Fortune 500,...
, Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....
, Nestle
Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. is the world's largest food and nutrition company. Founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestlé originated in a 1905 merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1867 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri...
, Kraft
Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods Inc. is an American confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It markets many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earn more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, Tang...
and Burger King
Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
, are driving the demand for new palm oil supplies, partly for products that contain non-hydrogenated
Hydrogenation
Hydrogenation, to treat with hydrogen, also a form of chemical reduction, is a chemical reaction between molecular hydrogen and another compound or element, usually in the presence of a catalyst. The process is commonly employed to reduce or saturate organic compounds. Hydrogenation typically...
solid vegetable fats, as consumers now demand fewer hydrogenated oils in food products that were previously high in trans fat
Trans fat
Trans fat is the common name for unsaturated fat with trans-isomer fatty acid. Because the term refers to the configuration of a double carbon-carbon bond, trans fats are sometimes monounsaturated or polyunsaturated, but never saturated....
content.
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth International is an international network of environmental organizations in 76 countries.FOEI is assisted by a small secretariat which provides support for the network and its agreed major campaigns...
concluded that the increase in demand also comes from biofuel
Biofuel
Biofuel is a type of fuel whose energy is derived from biological carbon fixation. Biofuels include fuels derived from biomass conversion, as well as solid biomass, liquid fuels and various biogases...
, with producers now looking to use palm as a source.
Biodiesel
Biodiesel made from palm oil grown on sustainable non-forest land and from established plantations effectively reduces greenhouse gas emissions.However, Greenpeace has concluded that "first generation" biodiesel extracted from new palm oil plantations may not on balance reduce emissions. If wood from forests cleared for palm plantations is burned instead of used for biodiesel, leaving forests untouched may keep more carbon out of the air.
Although palm oil has a comparatively high yield, alternative vegetable fuel oil
Vegetable oil used as fuel
Vegetable oil is an alternative fuel for diesel engines and for heating oil burners. For engines designed to burn diesel fuel, the viscosity of vegetable oil must be lowered to allow for proper atomization of the fuel, otherwise incomplete combustion and carbon build up will ultimately damage the...
sources with such as jatropha
Jatropha
Jatropha is a genus of approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees , from the family Euphorbiaceae. The name is derived from the Greek words ἰατρός , meaning "physician," and τροφή , meaning "nutrition," hence the common name physic nut. Mature plants produce separate male and female...
may have a better net effect. Although palm requires less manual labor to harvest a given amount of oil than jatropha, the latter grows well in more marginal areas and requires less water.
Sustainability
GreenpeaceGreenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
accuses major multinational companies of turning a blind eye to peatland destruction to supply low cost vegetable oil.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
In response to the urgent and pressing global call for sustainably produced palm oil, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil was formed in 2004 with the objective of promoting the growth and use of sustainable oil palm products through credible global standards and engagement of stakeholders.The...
, founded in 2004, gathers growers, processors, food companies, investors and NGOs to address this problem. Its purpose is to prod the industry into producing "sustainable" palm oil, product that is certified as not involving the destruction of important areas.
Certified supply and demand have both grown slowly. In the first year of trading only 30% of sustainable oil was sold as such. In 2010, sustainable purchases represented most of the 2 million certified tonnes produced. RSPO has struggled to set standards for greenhouse-gas emissions for plantations. Its members account for only 40% of production.
Helped by $1 billion from Norway, In May, Indonesia announced a two-year moratorium on new concessions to clear natural forests and peatlands and its own rival to the RSPO, which is expected to restrict all producers.
Carbon credit programs
Meanwhile, much of the recent investment in new palm plantations for biofuel has been part-funded through carbon creditCarbon credit
A carbon credit is a generic term for any tradable certificate or permit representing the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide or the mass of another greenhouse gas with a carbon dioxide equivalent equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide....
projects through the Clean Development Mechanism
Clean Development Mechanism
The Clean Development Mechanism is one of the "flexibility" mechanisms defined in the Kyoto Protocol . It is defined in Article 12 of the Protocol, and is intended to meet two objectives: to assist parties not included in Annex I in achieving sustainable development and in contributing to the...
; however the reputational risk associated with unsustainable palm plantations in Indonesia has now made many funds wary of investing there.
Persuading users
In 2008 UnileverUnilever
Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....
, an RSPO member, committed to use only palm oil which is certified as sustainable, by ensuring that the large companies and smallholders that supply it convert to sustainable production by 2015. This policy was in part a response to a Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
-staged event which dispatched activists dressed as orang-utans to Unilever’s offices in London, Merseyside, in Rome and in Rotterdam. Dove, one of the company’s best-known brands, was singled out by name.
Nestlé
Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. is the world's largest food and nutrition company. Founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestlé originated in a 1905 merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1867 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri...
a Swiss food giant, buys only 320,000 tons of palm oil a year and is an RSPO member. A 2010 spoof online advertisement shows an office worker eating an orang-utan finger made to look like a KitKat. Before the "ad", it had begun buying certified oil, but planned to limit itself to certified product only in 2015. On May 17, 2010, after 1.5 million viewings and 200,000 protest e-mails, Nestlé suspended all purchases from Sinar Mas and other suppliers running “high-risk plantations or farms linked to deforestation”. Nestlé recruited a Swiss charity, The Forest Trust (TFT), to review its supply chain, auditing every supplier.
World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) publishes an annual scorecard of the palm-oil policies of 59 European companies. As of 2009, twelve companies including giant retailer Metro
Metro AG
Metro AG is a diversified retail and wholesale/cash and carry group based in Düsseldorf, Germany. It has the largest market share in its home market, and is one of the most globalised retail and wholesale corporations. It is the fourth-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues . In English...
, tied for worst, scoring 0. Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer
Marks & Spencer
Marks and Spencer plc is a British retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, with over 700 stores in the United Kingdom and over 300 stores spread across more than 40 countries. It specialises in the selling of clothing and luxury food products...
and Migros
Migros
Migros is one of Switzerland's largest enterprises, its largest supermarket chain and largest employer. It co-founded Turkey's largest retailer, Migros Türk, which became independent of Migros Switzerland in 1975....
achieved the highest scores.
In 2010, the Nature Conservancy took representatives of America’s National Farmers Union and the American Farmland Trust to Brazil to see how illegal forest clearance was “hurting US businesses by flooding markets with cheap and unsustainable products”. A new report from David Gardiner & Associates, a consultancy, says that protecting the 13000000 hectares (50,193.3 sq mi) of mostly tropical forest that are lost annually to timber, cattle and agricultural production would boost American agricultural revenue by as much as $190 billion-270 billion between 2012 and 2030.
See also
- Food vs. fuel
- Environmental issues with energyEnvironmental issues with energyThe environmental impact of the energy industry is diverse. Energy has been harnessed by humans for millennia. Initially it was with the use of fire for light, heat, cooking and for safety, and its use can be traced back at least 1.9 million years....
- Sustainable biofuelSustainable biofuelBiofuels, in the form of liquid fuels derived from plant materials, are entering the market, driven by factors such as oil price spikes and the need for increased energy security...
- The Burning SeasonThe Burning Season (2008 film)The Burning Season is a documentary about the burning of rainforests in Indonesia which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008. The main characters featured in the film are: Dorjee Sun from Australia; Achmadi, a small-scale palm oil farmer from Jambi province in Indonesia; and Lone Drøscher...
, a 2008 documentary that highlights deforestation in Indonesia for palm oil plantations
External links
- Cooking the Climate - a Greenpeace report on the palm oil industry
- Palm oil publications from Greenpeace
- Bruce Parry's Penan documentary showing the social and environmental impact of palm plantations in Malaysia
- "The slippery business of palm oil" – The Guardian November 6, 2008
- "Palm oil: the biofuel of the future driving an ecological disaster now" – The Guardian April 4, 2006