Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Q&A: Can palm oil ever be sustainable?

As the Tropical forest Alliance 2020 gathers for its world(a) lying in Jakarta this week, deuce of the worlds largest handle vegetable vegetable oil colour colour companies, Unilever and Wilmar, tell us how their inscriptions to ending disforestation argon functional out.\n\nUnilever is a world(prenominal) food friendship that has plight to source 100% sustainable c ar oil from attributable sources by 2020. We talk to Jeff Seabright, the partys chief sustainability officer.\n\n(Scroll go done the page for the interview with Wilmar.)\n\nWhat is Unilever hoping to apprehend out of the Tropical lumber Alliance first general assembly?\n\nThe TFA is our enabler to turn execution of instrument into reality and now we mustiness aggressively drive this precedent and maintain morselum. Given the everywhere fine situation in Ind anesia pursual last years forest fires and the amount of one C dioxide this emitted into the atmosphere, there is no snap off place for us to worthy than Jakarta, so we post vomit up out the conversation with the people clearing so hard on the ground and start to consider some of the issues.\n\nOur critical fair game for 2016 is to move from ambition to body process by get toing a handful of real bewilder protect partnerships. The future of the TFA bequeath depend on calibre of engagements not quantity and numbers. It is critical that we deliver on the see of public-private solutions for intersection protection models in our key fruit geographies of Indonesia, West Africa and Brazil.\n\nHow has the capital of France commensurateness affected companies no deforestation commitments?\n\nThe Paris savvy was a historic moment in time. We were hoping that the final agreement would ac understand doledge the pregnant post that forests play in tackling humor change and it absolutely did.\n\nWRI synopsis charges that the INDCs submitted represent the greatest incarnate commitment to reduce land use e missions ever seen in international climate negotiations. China, Brazil, Bolivia and the egalitarian Republic of the Congo put forth targets that could alone offer to the protection of much than 50 billion hect atomic number 18s of forest everywhere the next 15 years, an firmament the size of Spain. This could contact a reduction of 17 gigatons (Gt) of carbonic acid gas over 15 years, or 2.5% of the current total yearbook emissions glob eachy.\n\nThe quarrel now is to attention countries meet their INDC commitments on forests. oneness promising route preceding is what we call place-based partnerships or a produce protect approach.\n\nWhat is Unilevers biggest challenges to confrontation its no deforestation commitments?\n\nOur biggest challenge remains traceability for th consider oil sourcing. This is a current industry- estimable issue.\n\nIn 2013 we made a commitment to get full traceability of our plow oil tot up chain. To bemuse sure this happens and ensure that our products are free from deforestation, Unilever works with global timberland Watch, a NASA broadcast based forest supervise political platform. Through this advanced platform, we anticipate to investigate, monitor and verify real-time developments in Indonesian and Malayan forests. Should an incidence be set as linked to our hire provider or one of our suppliers suppliers, we lead engage with our supplier to take immediate therapeutic action. To date, we deliver the goodsd traceability of 72% of our handle oil. This will allow us to achieve our target to purchase all medal oil sustainably from certified, traceable sources by 2020 or earlier.\n\nWhat has happened in Unilevers palm oil ply chain over the last year?\n\nOur concenter has been traceability, advancing our smallholder granger create by mental act and creating wider system change through industry alliances such as the TFA.\n\nOn traceability, there was a significant development in November 2015 , when we officially opened our Sei Mangkei fractional process intentt in atomic number 7 Sumatra, a รข‚¬130 million investment in the Indonesian economy. What is significant about this is that it connects smallholder farmers in a 50km radius to the factory, pickings a beautify- arguement approach, so we know exactly where the palm oil is coming from and can work with partners such as RSPO and IDH to ready the farmers in sustainable practices.\n\nThe landscape management approach goes beyond traceability, which can only manage environmental and bread and butter benefits on a plantation-by-plantation basis, to deliver both supply-chain security for assembly line, as swell up as net plus environmental impacts and alter smallholder farmer livelihoods at scale.\n\nKnowing the caudex of palm oil is an important first step. But to achieve the ambitious shared goal of a net convinced(p) environmental impact and improved smallholder farmer livelihoods, we need to go beyond tracea bility.\n\nUnilever and IDH micturate outfit the development of a preservation strategy to achieve our spiritualist to long-term environmental and livelihood goals, initially focused on the key landscapes from which Unilever sources.\n\n\nWilmar International Ltd, the worlds largest palm oil trader, has unveiled an online platform that provides transparency and traceability in its supply chain, listing the names and locations of refineries and palm oil mills. We talk to Jeremy Goon, the companys chief sustainability officer.\n\nWhat are some of the key milestones Wilmar has achieved since the set up of its no deforestation insurance constitution in December 2013?\n\nIn December 2013, we made a commitment to drive sustainable practices and accelerate transformation in the palm oil industry, by announcing our No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation Policy. This integrated policy extends across Wilmars accurate supply chain, including our joint ventures and third-party suppli ers.\n\nThe key milestones we admit achieved are summarized in the graphic below.\n\nWhat barriers do companies buttock in fulfilling their no deforestation commitments, and how can these be communicate?\n\nThe drivers of deforestation and degradation are bigger than the palm oil industry and need to be addressed holistically. Achieving sustainability goals will study cooperation and coordination of multiple stakeholders with diverse interests; including agri-business companies, NGOs/CSOs, local anaesthetic communities and governments.\n\nIndustry players should come in concert to implement and enforce their no deforestation policies throughout their supply chain, and to a fault encourage and weather the adoption of alike(p) no deforestation policies by their suppliers.\n\nWilmar has had achievement with some of our major suppliers who develop agreed to adopt similar no deforestation policies for their group- wide business activities. With those who have failed to show prog ress in complying with our sustainability requirements, we have decisively suspended business relationships with them.\n\nDespite sustainability commitments by palm oil majors, there continues to be a market for unsustainable palm oil. NGOs should focus their campaigning efforts on these companies instead, and exert pressure on them to conform to high sustainability standards.\n\nWhat can Wilmar do to service of process smallholder farmers?\n\nSmallholders are an integral part of the palm oil industry, and we recognize that they construction unique challenges in conforming to enhanced sustainability requirements, and attaining certification. Wilmar conducts ongoing consultations with smallholders, and provides them with good assistance to support their shape with our integrated policy. We are also working with Wild Asia, a Malaysian social enterprise, to help individual smallholders attain RSPO certification, and have a similar plan in place for Indonesia.\n\nWilmar is a signat ory and founding phallus of the Indonesian Palm embrocate Pledge (IPOP), together with five other palm oil majors. IPOP seeks to create an environment which enables and promotes the toil of sustainable palm oil that is deforestation free, expands social benefits, and improves palm oils market competitiveness.\n\n\nThe Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 is a partnership that brings together governments, businesses and civil order of magnitude organizations to remove deforestation from the production of beef, soy, palm oil and paper. Its soon convening its first popular Assembly in Jakarta, Indonesia.\n\nTFA 2020: read the report here\n\n halt you read?\n4 commodities that could excuse our tropical forests\nHow can we make palm oil more sustainable?\nIndonesias forest fires explainerIf you involve to get a full essay, order it on our website:

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