2Sustain

Unilever, one of the world’s largest buyers of palm oil, has eliminated one of the links in its palm oil supply chain.

The company has stopped all purchases of palm oil from the Indonesian company PT SMART after a Greenpeace report alleged the supplier engages in illegal deforestation and peatland clearance in Indonesia.

The Greenpeace report, “How the palm oil industry is cooking the climate,” didn’t single out Unilever. It also calls on Nestle and Procter & Gamble, to stop sourcing palm oil from irresponsible suppliers.

And, in doing so, it vividly underscores just how difficult it has become to ensure integrity in your supply chain. After all, Unilever, Nestle, and Procter & Gamble are all members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). From Greenpeace:

“All this is a little unnerving as the three companies mentioned above are members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a group of retailers, manufacturers and suppliers who also include multinational suppliers Cargill and ADM. The aim of the group is to create clear standards for producing sustainable palm oil but at present those standards are far too weak to ensure that forests and peatlands are not destroyed to meet growing demand for palm oil.”

Not to mention that chain-of-custody systems like this are difficult to manage, expensive, and perhaps worst of all, they’re quite vulnerable to fraud.

Kudos to Unilever for taking immediate steps to remedy the situation, even as it continues to work towards creating a palm oil market that is sustainable and certified. As a Unilever spokesperson told FoodNavigator.com: “The Greenpeace claims about (PT SMART) breaking RSPO guidelines are too serious for us to ignore.”