Company
forces suppliers to protect forests and peatlands, and respect community rights
 |
| An excavator clears a forest for palm oil plantation in west Kalimantan on Borneo island, southeast Asia. Photograph: Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images |
The food
giant Kellogg's has caved in to public pressure and agreed to buy palm oil only
from suppliers who can prove that they actively protect rainforests and
peatlands and respect human rights.
The move,
which follows intense pressure from consumer groups around the world, is
expected to improve the survival chances of highly endangered animals like the
Sumatran tiger and the orangutan in southeast Asia, as well as provide some
protection for indigenous peoples in Indonesia, Malaysia, New Guinea, Latin
America and west Africa who depend on tropical rainforests for a living.
At least
30,000 square miles of tropical forest has been cut down in the past 20 years
to supply the burgeoning global food industry with cheap palm oil to make
packaged foods, ice cream and snacks. The deforestation has led to illegal land
grabs, forest fires and social conflict in communities which depend on forest
resources for their livelihoods. The heavy loss of peatlands has also
contributed significantly to the increase in climate change emissions.
In a statement, Kellogg's said that it will require its suppliers to "protect
forests, endangered species habitat, lands with high carbon content, and
peatland of any depth. Suppliers will also be required to protect human and
community rights."
"While
palm oil is a very small percentage of our total ingredients, as a socially
responsible company, concerns about the sustainable production of palm oil are
clearly on our radar screen," said chief sustainability officer Celeste
Clark.
The
company, whose brands include Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Special K and
Pringles is thought to use about 50,000 tonnes of palm oil a year, said that it
planned to impose the changes by December 2015. It has sales of $14bn (£8bn)
annually, manufactures in 35 countries and sells food in over 180 countries.
"This
is clearly a step in the right direction. Now it needs to be implemented. This
will limit the damage that has already been done but it shows that the palm oil
industry is in transformation. Now it needs other major US and European
companies to follow," said Pat Venditti, deputy forest campaign director
at Greenpeace.
The
Kellogg's move, said Venditti, is expected to raise standards and increase
pressure on other food giants and their suppliers to follow suit.
It also
represents a major success for environment and consumer groups who have
challenged the industry's longstanding assurances that palm oil cultivation in
Asia was "sustainable" and which has hidden behind easily-obtained
green "certificates" which have not stopped the forest destruction
even in national parks and on fragile peatlands.
Kellogg's
follows a string of food companies and their suppliers who have committed
themselves to raising standards. It acted following reports last year that it
had been using illegally-grown palm oil from Indonesia sourced from its supply
partner Wilmar International, which controls over a third of the global palm
oil trade. In December 2013 Wilmar committed to ban its suppliers from
destroying forests and peatlands.
Related Articles:
No comments:
Post a Comment