Roundtable on Sustainable Palm oil

30 January 2006

Shamefully, only 18 of these 96 companies responded to Friends of the Earth, and none were able to prove that it could trace all of its palm oil back to non-destructive plantation sources.

By September 2005, only 15 companies had joined RSPO. They include:

• Cadbury Schweppes
• Unilever (Flora)
• Anglia (which supplies palm oil to Nairn's)
• Body Shop
• Co-op

Encouragingly for the initiative, the Boots Group and Asda Stores recently also applied for membership.

However, Tesco, Britain's largest and most successful supermarket chain, which sells hundreds of palm-oil products, has yet to apply.

Tesco is committed to sourcing palm oil in a responsible and sustainable way. We're engaging on the issue and have arranged a meeting with other retailers, through the British Retail Consortium, to consider the evidence and the progress made by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

Tesco spokesman speaking to The Daily Telegraph

While the big retailers "consider the evidence'', we the consumers have to be ready to insist on a means of labelling that shows us whether products contain palm oil.

And, what's more, we have to be ready to boycott or stop investing in companies that refuse to join RSPO.

Recommendations

Friends of the Earth suggests we write to our MPs to urge an amendment to the Company Law Reform Bill to ensure that supermarket directors take greater environmental and social responsibility for the products they sell.

The British Government can also help, by putting pressure on Malaysia and Indonesia . So can the EU. But at present the most effective weapon is consumer power: you and me in the supermarket aisles.

For further information, contact:

• The Orangutan Foundation
• Friends of the Earth
• Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
• United Nations Great Apes Survival Project