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Unilever has suspended sourcing from its palm oil supplier Sawit Sumbermas Sarana, following allegations that the supplier is involved in ongoing deforestation and peatland clearance in Indonesia.

HSBC is launching an investigation into Noble Plantations, an Indonesian company, after claims that the company plans to clear 69.5 square miles of rainforest in Papua, Indonesia. The investigation comes after Greenpeace and the Environmental Investigation Agency presented evidence of the company's plans to clear the land for palm oil plantations.

A year after being suspended from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and dropped by companies such as Unilever, Mars, Nestlé and Kellogg for clearing peatlands in Kalimantan, Indonesia, Malaysian palm oil producer IOI Group has announced plans to eliminate deforestation and exploitation throughout its supply chain. In response, Greenpeace has suspended its active campaign to give IOI time to show it is serious about reform.

Wilmar, the world's largest palm oil trader and a long-time target of environmentalists, has signed a landmark policy that commits the company to eliminate deforestation from its supply chain. Read more at http://news.mongabay.com/2013/1205-wilmar-zero-deforestation.html#I1BBsX02RqbVmSSf.99

To help ensure our purchases do not contribute to deforestation of the world's rainforests or negatively impact the communities that depend on them, we will source 100 percent of our palm oil from responsible and sustainable sources by 2015 (a commitment we first made in 2010).

Colgate-Palmolive issued a new Policy on No Deforestation, which commits the company to sustainably sourcing pulp, paper, palm oil, soy, and beef tallow. The company also pledged to achieve full traceability of its palm oil supply chain by 2015 under the policy.

Mondelēz International released a sustainable palm oil action plan that requires its suppliers to achieve full traceability by the end of 2015. The policy also requires suppliers to publish their sustainable sourcing practices and implementation timelines.

Another resolution, filed with J.M. Smucker, was withdrawn this week by co-filers Clean Yield Asset Management and Green Century Capital Management when the company agreed to stringent guidelines on the sourcing of palm oil.

This month BNP Paribas, the world's seventh-largest financial institution, announced a new palm oil policy that sets responsible palm oil production as a pre-condition for financing. The policy requires that companies receiving financing protect forests and indigenous people. It also requires companies to adhere to strict human rights and labor standards, end the use of hazardous pesticides, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, among other significant measures. The move charts a new path for responsible financing that all major financial institutions should follow - or else face the growing consumer backlash against environmentally destructive institutions.

. As is the case with many companies who tout the magic year 2020, Hershey promises it will buy 100 percent responsible and sustainable cacao by the end of that year, and boasts it is ahead of schedule of that goal by having already met it halfway. Hershey also showcases a program that it says helped 31,000 farmers in nations such as Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria, without divulging how - while saying they are learning "information on best practices in sustainable cacao farming." Such a vague disclosure is not going to mollify critics who have long said the global chocolate industry is one that provides indulgences for wealthy citizens at the expense of some of the world's

The world's most popular cheap cooking oil is becoming less affordable. Palm oil prices are up 10% since the start of the year, and closer to 16% since the end of January, when they dropped to $765 per tonne ($843 per ton). The stuff hasn't been this expensive since September of 2012.

Greenpeace today reveals the result of a yearlong investigation showing P&G is sourcing palm oil from companies connected to widespread forest devastation. Its sourcing policies also expose its supply chain to forest fires and habitat destruction that is further pushing the Sumatran tiger to the edge of extinction.

A businessman whose company kidnapped and violently assaulted environmentalists investigating illegal logging in a national park is set to earn millions of dollars from Thursday's initial public offering of Sawit Sumbermas Sarana, a palm oil company with holdings in Indonesian Borneo. Read more at http://news.mongabay.com/2013/1211-ssms-ipo.html#UUOhVkZxx6UTk8Rp.99

The protests included 20 activists displaying a giant banner from the top floor of P&G's Indonesian headquarters in Jakarta and dressing like tigers. Other protests were in the Philippines, India, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

A new radar and satellite system will give brands greater forest commodity sourcing transparency Companies that source commodities from areas potentially at risk of deforestation will have a new weapon in their armoury from the start of 2017. Starling is a high-resolution satellite auditing service that can be used to check forest management practices, in particular in source countries for palm oil, such as Indonesia and Malaysia.

Late last year, devastating fires engulfed 2 million hectares of land in Indonesia, impacting the health of 43 million people and emitting as much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as Brazil does in a year. They were driven by years of rampant, unregulated deforestation, chiefly for the expansion of paper pulp and oil palm plantations. Through global supply chains, we are all connected to Indonesia's fires and to the deforestation that led to them. It's easy to say we need to stop deforestation, but this is nearly impossible without adequate information. 

L'Oréal has pledged to use only renewable raw materials by the start of next decade as part of a "zero deforestation" strategy that will affect its sourcing of palm oil and other resources.

The environmental organization says the 60-foot banners on P&G's two towers were in protest of the consumer products company's use of palm oil from a supplier that Greenpeace says is linked to tropical forest destruction in Indonesia.