Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

Consumer products giant Proctor & Gamble has become the latest company to cave into pressure from Greenpeace, revealing new goals to eliminate deforestation from its entire palm oil supply chain by 2020.

Archers Daniels Midland (ADM) said it would announce details of a new "No Deforestation" policy for soy and palm oil at its May 7 annual meeting. The move follows pressure from investors Green Century Capital Management and the New York State Common Retirement Fund.

Forests and consumer campaign groups have called on the global coffee chain to step up its sustainability commitment and ensure its baked products do not use palm oil grown from destroyed forests and tiger habitats.

Major food brands, including Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, have recently announced that they're going "natural" by ditching chemical additives, unsustainable palm oil and other potential nasties. The lack of a standardized definition for "natural" product claims will water down the impact of such efforts and make it easier for less conscientious rivals to jump on the bandwagon, writes Nick Stockton. 

Food and commodities giant ADM, which has reached over US$80 billion in revenues, says it will develop a no-deforestation policy in a move to source soy and palm oil more responsibly. The change occurred after a shareholder proposal, submitted by Green Century Capital Management and the New York State Common Retirement Fund, requested that ADM set quantitative goals for a reduction in supply chain impacts from deforestation....

"The company has joined the ranks of many of its industry peers who recognize that they must also go beyond RSPO's standards to ensure that their purchases do not result in mass deforestation and labor abuses in the supply chain,"

Unilever and the World Resources Institute are partnering to increase transparency in agricultural commodity supply chains with the goal of ending tropical deforestation. The partnership will enable Unilever and its suppliers to use the Global Forest Watch Commodities platform to monitor forest cover change around commodity supply areas and processing facilities such as palm oil mills.

The potential for new laws governing the use of forest resources this year in Cameroon promises an opportunity to stem the rapid loss of forest in the biologically diverse country. But the changes may ultimately not be what's needed to save Cameroon's forests. Read more at http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0625-gfrn-cannon-cameroon.html#w6L2jPe1cgOgqGYr.99

Walmart launched a new sustainable agriculture strategy emphasizing locally sourced produce, sustainability training for farmers, and supply-chain environmental assessments. The company will also seek to reduce food waste in stores, purchase sustainable palm oil, and avoid Brazilian beef linked to Amazon deforestation.

Samsung IT says its subsidiary will not pursue any business with the Korean-Indonesian conglomerate Korindo, a company linked to rainforest destruction practices. A petition, launched by SumOfUs.org and delivered by Mighty Earth directly to Samsung's Corporate Social Responsibility team, was part of an extensive two-month campaign, calling on Samsung to drop the joint venture or any business partnership with Korindo. But Samsung IT still needs to clean up its palm oil practices, the groups say.

A new study calculates that the island of Borneo lost nearly 150,000 orangutans in the period between 1999 and 2015, largely as a result of deforestation and killing. There were an estimated 104,700 of the critically endangered apes left as of 2012. The study also warns that another 45,000 orangutans are doomed by 2050 under the business-as-usual scenario, where forests are cleared for logging, palm oil, mining and pulpwood leases. Orangutans are also disappearing from intact forests, most likely being killed, the researchers say.

Research published in the American Journal of Primatology earlier this month finds that the overall Western Chimpanzee population declined by six percent annually between 1990 and 2014, a total decline of 80.2 percent. The main threats to the Western Chimpanzee are almost all man-made. Habitat loss and fragmentation driven by slash-and-burn agriculture, industrial agriculture (including deforestation for oil palm plantations as well as eucalyptus, rubber, and sugar cane developments), and extractive industries like logging, mining, and oil top the list. In response to the finding that the Western Chimpanzee population has dropped so precipitously in less than three decades, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) elevated the subspecies' status to Critically Endangered on its Red List of Threatened Species.

France yesterday unveiled plans to reduce its carbon footprint by ceasing sales of gas and diesel vehicles by 2040 and then becoming carbon neutral by 2050, Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot said. France also plans to end coal-fired energy production by 2022, cut nuclear power use from 75% to 50% in eight years and halt imports of unsustainably grown palm oil and soy beans.

A palm oil supplier to Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever is destroying rainforests in Papua, Indonesia, a new investigation by Greenpeace International has revealed. Satellite analysis suggests that around 4,000 hectare of rainforest were cleared in PT Megakarya Jaya Raya concession between May 2015 and April 2017-an area almost half the size of Paris.

General Mills now sources 69% of its top ten priority ingredients from sustainable sources, the company announced this week. The most significant process has been made toward palm oil (100%), fiber packaging (99%) and sugar beets, sugar cane and oats (50% or more). General Mills says it has taken several concrete … Read more »

The Rainforest Action Network claims that PepsiCo's Palm Oil Action Plan Progress Report, released last week, is basically a sham. PepsiCo must begin enforcing environmental violations throughout its supply chain, or RAN intends to continue negative PR efforts against the company and its financial supporters.

A plant that will transform 500,000 tons of date palm and agricultural waste into 300,000 tons of organically-based petrochemical products like biofuels annually is part of Saudi Arabia's plan to diversify its economy and modernize its farms.

Unilever and the World Resources Institute have partnered to increase transparency in agricultural commodity supply chains with the aim to end tropical deforestation.

The world's leading certification body for ethically sourced palm oil has ordered a total ban on deforestation by its members, amid growing pressure from both companies and consumers.