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: (more…)

For years now, researchers have been warning about the collapse of our marine ecosystems. In particular, global fish populations are declining, and as startling as it sounds, by some estimates, we’ve already pushed as much as 75% of the world's fisheries beyond the limits of sustainability.

In the U.S., consumers buy half of their seafood at supermarkets –ringing in a total of about $16 billion in annual seafood sales –and so, a few years ago, Greenpeace initiated a scorecard that ranks supermarkets on the sustainability of their seafood operations. The third edition of this seafood sustainability scorecard, titled “Carting Away the Oceans,” was released this week, and it contains a glimmer of good news: more than half of the leading supermarket chains in the U.S. have made at least some progress in helping the oceans and meeting meet consumer demand for sustainable products.

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Earlier this month, Greenpeace released a new report on the destruction of the Amazon, the world’s most important forest carbon store. “Slaughtering the Amazon” shines a spotlight on the cattle sector in the Brazilian Amazon, which according to Greenpeace, is the largest driver of deforestation in the world, responsible for one in every eight hectares destroyed globally. In addition, the report also alleges that some leather sourced from Brazil originates from illegal cattle ranches that contribute to deforestation. Naturally, a claim like that caught my eye because it raises the fundamental question that now plagues any company committed to greening its products: If you don’t control all aspects of the supply chain, how can you be sure your product is as sustainable as possible?

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