The Palm Oil

Oil palm, Elaeis guineensis, was introduced to Malaya in 1870 from West Africa. This hardy crop starts bearing fruit within 2 1/2 to 3 years and keeps bearing fruit for up to 25 years, making it the longest yielding crop in the world.

The fleshy outer layer produces crude palm oil and the seed yields palm kernel oil.

Palm oil is used in a variety of industries from the commercial manufacturing of food and beauty products to the manufacturing of non-food products.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

After Facebook backlash, Nestle steps up sustainability

 17/05/2010 (CNET News) - An aggressive, meant-to-shock Facebook and YouTube campaign on behalf of Greenpeace has led food conglomerate Nestle to modify its policies regarding the use of palm oil.

Nestle announced early Monday that it has partnered with The Forest Trust, a nonprofit group that helps businesses develop practices to harvest forests sustainably. The partnership is designed to reduce the social and environmental impacts of Nestle's corporate supply chain by severing ties to companies that contribute to deforestation. The first issue addressed will be its use of palm oil--the harvesting of which has been connected to the loss of rainforests and the animal species that inhabit them, as well as to greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenpeace considers this a major victory: two months ago, the environmental group targeted Nestle's use of palm oil with a purposely unsettling video that compared eating Kit-Kat bars to snacking on the bloodied appendages of orangutans. When Nestle lobbied to have the video removed from YouTube, Greenpeace turned the heat up a notch and encouraged supporters to start posting comments in protest on Nestle's Facebook fan page and to change their profile photos to modified versions of the Nestle logo (i.e. "Killer" instead of Kit-Kat"). The whole thing turned into a particularly ugly social-media mess for Nestle when the manager of the company's fan page on Facebook started getting argumentative and rude. The commenters grew more vocal, even after the page manager apologized.

Nestle's announcement on Monday makes no mention of the digital smackdown that pressured it into making this change, but Greenpeace was quick to highlight the role of social media and the more traditional forms of grassroots lobbying.

"With nearly 1.5 million views of our Kit Kat advert, over 200,000 emails sent, hundreds of phone calls and countless Facebook comments, you made it clear to Nestle that it had to address the problems with the palm oil and paper products it buys," Greenpeace's U.K. division said in a statement Monday. "Greenpeace campaigners have met several times with Nestle executives to discuss the problems with sourcing of palm oil and paper products. It certainly seemed like things were moving forward in these discussions. But we didn't expect Nestle to come up with such a comprehensive 'zero deforestation' policy so quickly."

Nestle said it had already set a goal to make its palm oil products 100 percent sustainable by 2015. Right now, it's at 18 percent.

So is its partnership with The Forest Trust anything more than just posturing? Greenpeace is optimistic. The Forest Trust is an "independent organization we've worked with before (and) will be closely monitoring Nestle's progress," according to Greenpeace's statement.

Over on Nestle's Facebook fan page, the atmosphere is a lot sunnier than it was two months ago.

"If Nestle does really well and leads by example, then other large companies willing to keep market share in the future will need to follow a similar track. I feel more happy today than yesterday," one commenter wrote.

Another added, "This is proof that at least Nestle [is] listening to the negative feedback."

But corporate championing of sustainability is under a lot of scrutiny these days, particularly after last month's accident on a BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The petroleum giant, which had spent years rebranding itself as a forward-thinking energy company, still has not stopped the oil gushing into the gulf.

Many commenters on Nestle's Facebook page who were writing about its partnership with The Forest Trust were, at best, cautiously optimistic. "This is good news from Nestle, provided that this partnership with TFT is serious and leads to an ambitious action plan," a Facebook member posted in the comments section.

Others were downright cynical. "Yeah, yeah, mankind will pay for its sinful ways, etc.," one commenter griped. "Let's go sit in a park and play bongos."

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

New Group Formed by Malaysian and Indonesian Palm Oil Players

Collaboration to engage with RSPO for more practical sustainable criteria

04/05/2010 (The Star Online), Kuching - Palm oil producers in Indonesia and Malaysia have established the Indonesia-Malaysia Palm Oil Group (IMPOG) to formalise their collaboration on sustainable palm oil development.

IMPOG’s first chairman will be from the Association of Plantation Investors of Malaysia in Indonesia, which will also serve as its secretariat this year.

“The chairmanship will be rotated bi-annually,” said a joint communique issued after the first meeting of Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil producers here yesterday.

The communique said the group had set up a steering committee to focus on emerging research and development, sustainability related issues and communication to stakeholders.

“IMPOG did not discuss any alternative sustainability certification scheme for palm oil. However, the meeting agreed to engage with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) for a more practical and implementable scheme,” it added.

Earlier, Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok said Malaysia opposed the inclusion of greenhouse gas emission calculations in the RSPO principles and criteria for palm oil certification as such calculations varied widely from mineral soils to peatland.

“The adoption of greenhouse gas emission calculation when palm oil is used for food purposes does not create a level playing field. Producers of other food crops such as wheat, cattle and sheep are not subjected to such scrutiny,” he added.

He said the oil palm tree was unique because of its inherent high productivity and efficient carbon assimilation.

Dompok said under current practices, oil palm was the highest yielding crop in the world, easily surpassing, sometimes up to 10 times, the oil yield of competing oilseed crops.

He warned Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil producers, who together contribute some 85% of the world’s palm oil production, not to compromise on sustainable practices as the consequences would be damaging and have far-reaching impact on the industry.

Indonesian Palm Oil Association (Gapki) chairman Purboyo Guritno, who led the Indonesian delegation, said the time was ripe for palm oil producers in both countries to adopt a proactive strategy to counter the threats by the Western anti-palm oil movement.

“So far, we have always taken a defensive mode, hoping that the anti-palm oil movement will give up with improving knowledge on the positive impact of palm oil industry in poverty alleviation and economic growth, and the rising demand for food and energy that can only be met by palm oil development,” he said.

However, he said it was awful to see escalating threats from the anti-palm oil movement and the magnitude of challenges faced by the oil palm industry.

Purboyo said the meeting of palm oil producers in Malaysia and Indonesia marked an incredible turn of events to jointly address the growing pressures and threats from competitors and their allies in pushing for more rigorous environmental, social standards and requirements.

Six organisations that represent oil palm growers in Indonesia and Malaysia signed a memorandum of collaboration for the establishment of a producers’ cooperation forum on sustainable palm oil in Jakarta recently.

Besides Gapki, the other signatories were Malaysian Palm Oil Association, Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners Association, Association of Plantation Investors of Malaysia in Indonesia, Indonesia Oil Palm Smallholders Association and Federal Land Development Authority.