The palm oil scandal: Boots and Waitrose named and shamed
Retailers complicit in environmental damage caused by industry, World Wide Fund for Nature says
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Most British manufacturers and retailers including Boots, Morrisons and Waitrose have done little to limit the environmental damage done by the production of the world's cheapest vegetable oil, according to research published today.
In a survey of leading European food and household firms, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said that only Sainsbury's, Marks and Spencer and a handful of other companies had made substantial progress towards sourcing sustainable palm oil.
Continental retailers came out worst in the survey of 59 firms, with many French, German and Dutch chains making no effort to prevent the huge problems caused by the oil's production.
Palm oil is found in chocolate, biscuits, cereals, soap, shampoo and dozens of other products, but is also widely used as a bio-fuel for cars and power stations. While providing much needed income for developing countries, it has led to severe deforestation, human rights abuses and loss of endangered wildlife in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Orangutans, the arboreal great apes now restricted to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, are threatened with extinction because of the loss of their habitats. Deforestation – of which palm oil is the biggest cause in Indonesia and Malaysia – also generates 20 per cent of global climate change emissions.
The WWF disclosed that 40 of the 59 companies had not bought any oil certified sustainable by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (Rspo) – which sets environmental standards for the £16bn-a-year industry, the most important of which is a ban on planting new oil palms in virgin forests.
Of 25 UK companies, 14 had not bought any Rspo oil – Aldi, Associated British Foods, Croda international, Boots, Warburtons, Britannia Food Ingredients, Waitrose, Morrisons, Jordans Ryvita, Northern Foods, Reckitt Benckiser, Co-op, Premier Foods and Tesco. Out of a maximum of 29 points, WWF scored them between 0 and 16.
However, seven British firms were among the best 10 performers Europe-wide, including Sainsbury's, Marks and Spencer and Cadbury. Among foreign companies, Nestlé, ranked mid-table, this week committed to switching to 100 per cent Rspo oil by 2015.
The WWF said it hoped the naming and shaming would raise awareness of palm oil's environmental damage and encourage companies to act. Presently, companies have bought only 19 per cent of the 1.3m tonnes of certified oil.
The WWF believes palm oil will grow in importance in coming years, because production is forecast to rise by up to 10 per cent annually and the only place palm oil can be grown is in the tropics, home to the world's great rainforests.
"The top-scoring companies have shown what's possible, with some buying substantial quantities of certified oil, but now it's a question of whether the majority will follow," said Adam Harrison, WWF's senior policy officer for food and agriculture. "If they do, it will transform the market, giving producers the confidence to grow more sustainable palm oil. If they don't, there will be grave consequences for the environment."
Waitrose said it recognised the importance of the issue and expected to make progress in the next 12-18 months, while Morrisons said: "We are working with our suppliers to ensure palm oil used as an ingredient in our own label products comes from sustainable sources."
Lidl said it was working towards securing a sustainable supply by 2015, while Warburtons said that in addition to joining the Rspo it would take advice from the WWF on sustainable sourcing. Boots said it used only a small amount of derivatives that were not commercially available, "hence our score in this report which we do not feel reflects our commitment to this subject".
Justin King, chief executive of Sainsbury's, which sources sustainable oil for its fish, biscuits and soap, said: "Much more work now needs to be done, and it is vital that other retailers and food manufacturers follow our lead to ensure that the rainforests are preserved for future generations."
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
* Established in 2003, the RSPO aims to stop environmental damage from palm oil. But not enough companies are paying the extra 10 to 20 per cent per tonne for this greener supply.
* By mid-2009, certified plantations were able to produce 1.75 million tons – one third of the EU's palm oil use. By this month, only 200,000 tonnes had been traded – 5 per cent of Europe's annual consumption.
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Comments
Er... deforestation causes a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions... palm oil cultivation is the main cause of tropical deforestation... it's not such a confusing message, is it?
You don't seem to know very much.
The importance of forests at this stage is not tomaintain the oxygen level, but to prevent the CO2 level risisng so fast we melt the planet in a matter of decades.
The only reason polar bear numbers have increased is because they are now a protected species, having previously been unprotected and hunted to near extinction. However, the prospects for polar bears living in their nartural state is abysmal.
Carbon dioxide at levels above 300 ppm is a serious pollutant and a very dagerous gas. And as a simple verification of that fact, if you put a plastic bag over your head you will not die of oxygen starvation, but will die from the build up of CO2.
By the way NOAA announced recently that in 2009 ocean tempertures (the thing that really matters) were the highest since records began.
You don't know what you are talking about and your evaluation of the role of CO2 is contrary to all scientific and medical knowledge.
As the old saying goes: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
I think there are some crossed purposes in this thread. The problem with greenhouse gases is not to do with the concentration of CO2 causing oxygen starvation or toxicity per se. The reason greenhouse gases are important is that their concentration risks upsetting a wide variety of ecosystems which have both direct and indirect impacts for us humans. For instance, increases of CO2 acidify the oceans (currently being observed) resulting in the weakening of mollusc shells. Molluscs sit at the base of a number of food chains that humans use. That's a direct impact. An indirect impact is the consequence of elevated temperatures for ice melt, say in the Himalaya (currently receding at the fastest rate anywhere in the world, despite some disputes on the facts) or in the Pacific North West USA where observed April First Snow-Water Equivalent is changing (as is the fraction of precipitation falling as rain, not snow, affecting runoff and natural water reservoirs). These and similar climatically induced changes will over time affect many hundreds of millions directly and indirectly (e.g., salt water intrusion in Bangladesh, reported recently).
Global climate change has about the strongest scientific consensus that there has ever been, about anything. That doesn't guarantee that it is right, in principle, but it does make it the best explanation that we have for what we have observed, and continue to observe. In that context, non-sustainable palm oil contributes significantly to forest loss which contributes overall about the same to greenhouse gas emissions as the global transport system. That makes this article timely in relation to Copenhagen, which will major on forests, and to my mind a clarifying, rather than confusing, message.
There is now a worldwide movement to have CO2 levels restored to 350ppm or below because levels above 350ppm trigger positive feedback mechanisms that will make the Earth largely uninhabitable.
People who die in submarines that are not ruptured die of CO2 poisoning. Admittedly, the level in the atmosphere can never possibly reach sufficient lelvel to cause that effect because even the current level (390pp) is poisoning the oceans -primarily by lowering the pH and wrecking the carbonate-bicarbonate cycle essential for shell formation for a multitude of organisms at the base of the food chain.
The oceans are dying, and when they are dead, so is most life on this planet.
The only reason we are not enduring 1000ppm CO2 in the atmopsphere right now is because the ocean have been abd=sorbing it since the time of the Industrial Revolution: hence the time lag between insudrtialism and rising CO2 in teh atmosphere. Big trouble when they become saturated, and absorb less and less CO2:even bigger trouble when they start to release it because of rising ocean temperatures. (There has already been a report on teh Great Southern Ocean indicating that pointbhas been reached).
The Mediterranean is not a typical ocean and accpounts for less than 1% of ssea water: it is irrelveant in this dicussion. Much more important are the Great Southern Ocean and the Arctic Ocean, where rising temperatures will release CO2 in staggering quanties.
Your argument about antrhropogenic emissions being only 4% of the total is erroneous. The carbon cycle was quite well babalced before humans started adding that 4%. It is the cululative effect of constantly adding more carbon dioxide that is teh core of the problem. If you had a bank account that paid 4% interest, would you not expect the balance to increase?
In the apst CO2 levels have indeed been higher than present, but the rate of change has never been anything like that currently seen. In answer to your question, higher temperatures in past geolocical eras would have driven CO2 out of the ocean and into the atmosphere, thus preserving the ability of shellfish to form shells. (Fossils of what we regard as tropical species have been dicovered in high latitudes, clear evindece of much warmer periods in Earth history. However, that is not to say humans would be able to survive under such conditions. After all previous abrupt cliamte chabge events ahve wiped out up to 905 of life on this planet. The fatc that sufficient individuals survived to regenerater is not oindicative of thriving. In many species just 20 genetically diverse individuals is sufficient to regenerate a popualtion.
The orm you so quickly dismiss is what has prevailed for teh past 600,000 years and is what permitted modern humans to thrive. Destroying that norm will reult in teh annihilation of the human species -which would not be a bad thing, since humanity has been described a plague of greedy apes ravaging the planet.
Polar bears were able to survive previous periods of cliamte change because the changes were relatively small, slow, and favoured polar bears, and their worst enemy -humans- did not occupy that region of the planet at thet time.
The curious thing is, civilisation is not sustainable anyway, so desperate attempts to deny climate change or hang on to fossil fuel use are futile.
I agree: 'The phrase "fight climate change" is stupid.' because the entire economic system is predicated on generating climate change (use of fossil fuels: without foissil fuels this so-called civilisation collapses). It's going to happen anyway, since the whole notion of perpetual growth on a finite planet is absurd.
'stories about climate change, which are just not born out by history.' Quite right. What we are witnessing is totally unprecedented in all of human history.
If you are using a time scale of 600,000 years, I think you will find that present atmospheric CO2 levels are abnormally low. During that time scale the norm would be ice ages, which last many times longer than interglacials, and don't forget the next one is due any time soon.
Humans are not a threat to polar bears, especially since we decided to be nice to them. The reason they survived is because they revert to living like their close cousins, brown bears. They take to the land and hunt land animals, and indeed they can be observed doing that right now in some locations.
I agree that the present human population is unsustainable, as it is dependent on the warm temperatures and high CO2 for food supply. Even a little ice age, which appears to be starting now, will considerably reduce the food supply.All the indications are that the sun is going into a repeat of the Maunder minimum, and no amount of anthropogenic global warming will overcome the cooling that ensues.
I did not write that at all. Not 'able to absorb', but 'have absorbed'. The level in the atmopshere would be a lot higher than the present 390ppm if the oceans had not absorbed billions of tonnes of CO2 emitted through the burning of coal since the 1780s and oil since the 1860s. The level of CO2 in the oceans is cloesely linked to the level in the atmosphere: the higher the partial gas pressure in the atmopshere (in other words the higher the ppm), the more goes into the oceans [at fixed temperature].
In practice ocean temperature are rising -2009 recorded the highest ever in human history so your suggestion 'a little ice age, which appears to be starting now' is absurd. And,as previously pointed out, warmer oceans willa bsorb less CO2 or actually staret treleasing it, leading to ever faster warming.
Your comment 'I think you will find that present atmospheric CO2 levels are abnormally low' when current levels of CO2 are up nearly 40% on the historical based line of around 300ppm, is also absurd.
I am not interested in any furthetr discussion with a person who deliberately twists statements to their own ends and continuously present absurdities as facts.
The problem of loss of habitat, human cost from lead mining cities of retards , to oil in the niger delta, Ecuadorian forests, local trash piles full of heavy metals basically a complete disregard by corporations around the world for local green management is secondary to the apparent impending climate change holocaust.
When the infrastructure of our society makes some attempt to conserve power and generate heat locally with solar energy, Over 50% of the E,U, hot water could be generated in this way. All waste heat from factories and generators should be recycled into the cities, currently our local power station sends its hot water in to the sea, out of a 10 km pipe.
Until these changes happen and they can only happen when the corporations allow, i will be skeptical about the climate change being man made,
1st White Middle Class westerners.
2nd The Pandas
3rd Polar Bears
4th Penquins
5th Plants
6th Oceans
7th Air
8th Organic vegetables
9th Bicycles
10th IPods
.
.
.
Last. Poor Coloured People.
PS Remember WWF is a big coporate business, it has a turnover of $500 million a year.
The idea that WWF (a big non-profit organisation, not a big corporate business - subtle difference) protects wildlife at the expense of people is woefully innaccurate, by the way. Sustainable palm oil is about social justice and benefitting local people as its environmental impact.
As long as our societies keep in-fighting and we let our super-rich take all the decisions then the destruction of forests and extermination of other species will keep happening, just like the exploitation of the 'third-world' will keep happening.
Worse is that this is all done our names. The consumer wants cheaper products; the consumer always wants more. Yet at the end of day, the consumer has consumed something he didn't even realise that he wanted and the super rich are even richer.
Just how do you turn billions of consumers back in to humain beings?
Give someone the power to play god and that's exactly what they do!