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Mondelez cuts ties with 12 palm oil suppliers, citing deforestation
- matthewaveryusa 8y agopalm oil is the most efficient oil to extract by practically a factor of 2 [1]. So in the long term, if global supply increases or stays stable, if we replace palm oil crops with another crop, eventually we'll make the problem worse and face more deforestation. Can someone explain why this wouldn't be the case? [1] according to this http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html
- zizee 8y agoI believe that with palm oil the issue is that the entire tree is cut down as the oil is inside the core of the trunk. If people were soley using farmed trees, it wouldn't be so bad, but instead people are clearing animal habitats.
- Sammi 8y agoI keep trying to ask people this "What do you think the farmers will do if they can't grow oil palms?". Cause the answer is obvious. They will not stop trying to make a living and working hard to feed their families. No, instead of growing the oil palm they will grow something else. And now we're at best right back where we started, but more realistically we are worse off, because there is a reason the farmers prefer oil palms. It is obviously because they are the most profitable, because they require the least work/land/capital for the most output. So the second best option they will choose for growing will be something that is even worse for the environment and the orangutans!
- mc32 8y agoThis the kind of political action I can live with. I’d like to see it in other markets, furniture, etc., anywhere natural resource extraction doesn’t include the mitigation of impact and offsetting the effects. This is Much much better than activists going vigilate and taking the violent aproach.
- RugnirViking 8y agoReally impressive stuff coming out of the palm oil activism front recently. A series of victories in only a few days - a rare thing indeed in the environmental world
- saiya-jin 8y agoGreat to see it indeed - but I don't get why now and not earlier. Deforestation of biggest and oldest rain forests due to this is known at least for last 10 years, probably more (that's when I heard about it the first time, with all the controversy that surrounds EU subsidizing this due to bio fuels). I've been to Borneo 2 years ago, the views all over Malaysian parts of it (and actual Malaysia mainland too, you see it from plane when landing in Kuala Lumpur very clearly) were extremely depressing to me - rows and rows of palm trees in perfect grid where you expect true chaotic wilderness, and basically no other plants around it, just bare soil. That put a pretty sour taste to otherwise beautiful vacation, not sure if I want to visit that country again
- vertline3 8y ago"Great to see it indeed - but I don't get why now and not earlier. " There was a story posted earlier this week about orangutan populations on decline due to Cadbury using Palm Oil. This story made me rather angry, as they are just trying to live and we need to make sure they can.
- cosmie 8y ago> Great to see it indeed - but I don't get why now and not earlier You're seeing results now, but that doesn't mean the actions haven't been going on for a while. When I was at Unilever ~7 years ago, I sat across from one of the environmental lawyers working on their sustainability initiatives. At that point in time, in order to sustainably source palm oil you had to: 1) Define what "sustainable" meant 2) Create, support, or at the very least integrate with whatever body does the certification and monitoring of the sustainability aspect 3) Drill down multiple levels deep and ensure you know the entire chain of custody of your raw supplies at all times. The equivalent of recursively auditing every single dependency of every single dependency in your source code, where every single dependency has the ability to arbitrarily inject net new dependencies without notice. 4) Enough market clout to force suppliers through all of this hassle. Which in the end doesn't net the supplier much additional income, since the increased prices get eaten by the increased compliance and production costs. 5) Enough compliant global suppliers to minimize supply risk. 6) Time delay related to implementation of all of the above, plus contract re-negotiations with suppliers which add in language related to the sustainability obligations. Unilever disclosed earlier this year the entire list of 300 direct suppliers and 1,400 mills they source palm oil from[1]. They've also shown their suppliers that the requirement has teeth and that non-compliance will result in being dropped[2]. That's only possible after over a decade of effort in rolling out the global resources, infrastructure, processes, and supply chain risk planning necessary to be able to do so at such a massive scale. But now that supply chain transparency for palm oil has been developed at scale by the large CPG[3] companies, the sustainable sourcing barrier is a lot lower for mid-sized manufacturers and we'll hopefully start seeing more of this. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-unilever-palmoil-transparency/unilever-lays-bare-palm-oil-supply-chain-in-rare-industry-move-idUSKCN1G025J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-unilever-palmoil-transpar... [2] https://www.cips.org/en/supply-management/news/2018/may/unilever-suspends-palm-oil-suppliers-over-deforestation-claims/ https://www.cips.org/en/supply-management/news/2018/may/unil... [3] Consumer Packaged Goods. Companies like Unilever, P&G, Mars, etc that make all the random little things you pick up from the store during your day-to-day shopping.
- iandanforth 8y agoFor reference Mondelez makes Oreos, Nilla Wafers, ChipsAhoy cookies, Ritz crackers and many others (https://www.mondelezinternational.com/brand-family https://www.mondelezinternational.com/brand-family)
- PunchTornado 8y agogood excuse to buy some Oreos today...
- w1nst0nsm1th 8y agowhat about Milka Oreo ?
- themodelplumber 8y agoMilka too, as well as Toblerone, Côte D'or, Green & Black's Organic, Terry's Chocolate Orange, in addition to all the Cadbury stuff.
- alkonaut 8y agoIt’s basically the cookies/chocolate-division of Kraft foods, correct?
- shortoncash 8y agoThis is really great. I switched off products that use palm oil a while back, but I always feel so isolated when making changes like this. When a giant company does it, that has real impact. Thanks to the people out there that are making this sort of thing happen -- here's to hoping real good comes out of this.
- friendly_chap 8y agoLikely big companies do this because there are enough of people like you out there who vote with their wallets, so I think you succeeded, congrats and thanks!
- beaconstudios 8y agoI'm more inclined to believe that it's the media causing negative PR for the companies. Brand image is everything to big companies so a slew of media attacks around a particular topic will often cause the company to change tactics.
- new12345 8y agoTrue. Single most important factor that brings changes to any publicly traded company direction is revenue growth.
- craftyguy 8y agoUnless you're a government-entitled monopoly (in the US: ISPs). Then it doesn't matter what anyone says about you (the company), and 'voting with your wallet' means you (the consumer/citizen) go without a crucial utility.
- DoubleCribble 8y agoOr you can start your own utility and be the change you want to see in the world. A lifestyle business does not appear to be out of reach for those with some technical skills and a modest budget[0]. [0] https://startyourownisp.com/ https://startyourownisp.com/
- yawz 8y agoWe should all add our voice to the growing consumer pressure around the world. Yesterday I contacted thrivemarket.com to complain about their carrying products using palm oil.
- vinnyglennon 8y agoRelated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdpspllWI2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdpspllWI2o an ad Iceland(company) created to counter palm oil usage.
- dspillett 8y agoThe video was created by Greanpeace (and has been previously published), Iceland have an agreement with them to use it (with logos swapped out) for the purposes of advertising their palm-oil-free-ness. I'm not sure if the poem was written specifically for/by GP or if they are using it under licence.
- KineticLensman 8y agoVery sadly this ad has just been banned in the UK. The UK regulator's statement [0] said that the criteria for banning it was that it was "An advertisement which is inserted by or on behalf of a body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature." Greenpeace are the body in question who created the video and have apparently been screening it on their website. Iceland (the retail organisation not the country) would have been showing it on their behalf as their Christmas ad, where I think it could have been very effective in nudging public opinion. [0] https://www.clearcast.co.uk/press/iceland-advert/ https://www.clearcast.co.uk/press/iceland-advert/
- growse 8y agoI'm not sure I'd call it 'very sad'. We have very strict rules about political advertising in the UK, and I'm pleased that they get upheld. In any case, the ad seems to be having no trouble reaching people.
- tomp 8y agoIt’s not political, it’s an appeal to morality. Just like ads to support e.g. children’s hospitals, which I see all the time on UK TV. Banning this ad is highly hypocritical.
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- enibundo 8y agoDitched companies and products who don't respect the environment a while back... Just preparing for the future where the others won't have the choice anyways :)
- guelo 8y agoWestern boycotts don't affect the palm oil market much because most of the world's palm oil is consumed by India where it is prized for its cheapness, and where sustainability concerns are dismissed as a western luxury.
- ljf 8y agoReally no harm though in removing our use of it for a food oil or fuel. Do you agree?
- Pfhreak 8y agoSome impact is better than no impact. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
- brianwawok 8y agoIs it though? I wonder about this a lot. Let's say 100 farmers around the world sell palm oil, for $100 a tub. About half wreck the environment, about half are very careful and replant what they harvest. Western people come in and start to refuse to buy the "environment wrecking" Palm Oil. So they go to the environmental friendly sellers, and start paying $150 for ethical palm oil. On the other hand, people that don't care or places that can get away with it continue to use forest destroying palm oil. There is now a price difference ($100 for normal stuff, $150 for ethical stuff), so most non-western demand shifts to the cheap stuff. End result: Still 100 farmers selling palm oil. 50 being ethical, and 50 not. The 50 unethical farmers still make $100 per tub. The 50 ethical farmers now make $150 per tub. The environment seems no different. The only difference is that $50 got transferred from the banks of wealthy westerners to the ethical palm oil farmers. Which is nice and all, but I am not seeing how it changed anything in the environment. You would need almost EVERYONE to switch to the ethical route for it to do anything. That would cause surplus supply and price drops of unethical palm oil. Even 50% of users switching seems not nearly enough.
- metalliqaz 8y agoIf there is enough demand, the unethical farmers can move to the ethical side to make the better price.
- overcast 8y agoIt's a shame it takes this much damage, and external pressure to occur first, before changes are made to something that should have been in place from the beginning. Just like anything I suppose. Disaster first, then fix. When will humans ever be proactive?
- always_good 8y agoMaybe when they are immortal.
- kpwagner 8y agoI make and sell handmade soap with palm oil, among other oils. Unfortunately, palm is a special oil, and palmitic acid is an important part of the oil comp to produce a good bar. The only substitute is lard. While I don't mind using soap made from lard, it has a stigma in the marketplace (i.e. non-vegan, gross).
- roadbeats 8y agoYou can make handmade soaps with olive oil, too. So you don't have to cut any trees. Olive trees are good for environment, too.
- plop_ 8y agoYou can make soap with lot of different oils. But different oils make different soaps. for instance a soap made exclusively with sunflower oil will be very soft and not bubbly, a soap made from coconut oil will be the exact contrary.
- kpwagner 8y agoYes, exactly. Handmade soaps are rarely made from a single oil. I use a blend of palm, coconut, avocado, and castor. What oils you use and what percentage each oil represents in the composition, determines the base properties of the soap. I experimented with many compositions to get to my current recipe that I really like.
- ricardobeat 8y agoHope you’re not offended, but it sounds like you simply don’t care enough about this to make a change. There is a definitely a way to source from sustainable producers and/or change the recipe, but it will come at a cost. This is true in many businesses.
- tomp 8y agoI think the unsustainable part is increasing consumerism. From this thread I gathered that palm oil is more edficient than e.g. coconut oil. So if people drop palm oil and switch to coconut oil, the sustainability problem will get worse.
- jcampbell1 8y agoThe real issue is biodiesel. This is nice, but we should get the oil from wells and not not rainforests. Chopping down rainforests is not the right way to increase Indonesian income or address climate change.
- logfromblammo 8y agoOr use algae biodiesel and duckweed ethanol. Then sell the presscakes as Soylent Green. Or further process them to make non-soy tofu.
- simplify 8y agoDoes making palm oil require destroying the tree? I'm honestly ignorant about this subject.
- ar-nelson 8y agoThe issue isn't damage to existing oil palms, but tearing down rainforest (including orangutan habitat) to make room for large plantations of oil palms.
- iicc 8y agohttps://www.greenpeace.org/international/publication/18455/the-final-countdown-forests-indonesia-palm-oil/ https://www.greenpeace.org/international/publication/18455/t... > Half of the Bornean orangutan population has been wiped out in just 16 years, with habitat destruction by the palm oil industry a leading driver. More than three-quarters of Tesso Nilo national park, home to tigers, orangutans and elephants, has been converted into illegal palm oil plantations. Globally, 193 Critically Endangered, Threatened and Vulnerable species are threatened by palm oil production. > The plantation sector – palm oil and pulp – is the single largest driver of deforestation in Indonesia. Around 24 million hectares of rainforest was destroyed in Indonesia between 1990 and 2015, according to official figures released by the Indonesian government [1].
- Paperweight 8y ago3/4 of a national park illegally logged and planted? What's it going to take for these places to get it together? Seriously. What?
- neolefty 8y agoDeforestation of existing land for agriculture, which leads to habitat loss and environmental degradation. I recommend a web search — there's lots of info out there.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoSo are they just cutting ties with suppliers that are actively sawing down rainforests? How about suppliers that have already destroyed huge swathes of it but aren't currently expanding their plantations, surely they don't deserve Mondelez's business if this isn't just a PR stunt?
- matt_morgan 8y agoIf you want it to keep going, support Greenpeace.
- raverbashing 8y agoOh the "nuclear power is bad let's keep using non-renewable fuels" greenpeace? No, thanks
- dewey 8y agoI’d say the lesser evil of these two is the one that can be switched off faster and doesn’t any extremely long lasting side effects even if it’s less green “right now”. There are various alternatives to nuclear power that are getting better quickly and will get only more popular as fossil fuels get less attractive.
- saalweachter 8y agoSo you're saying atmospheric CO2 is not an extremely long-lasting side effect?
- cagenut 8y agothe effects of a +2C climate will wildly, massively, unspeakably eclipse that of a hundred chernobyls. we are on course for at least a +4C world.
- reaperducer 8y agoIs Greenpeace still using bunker oil to power its ship, and dumping garbage and human waste at sea, or is that all fixed now? (Fueling a ship with bunker oil is only slightly less bad to the environment than shoveling baby koalas into the furnace.)
- llcoolv 8y agoWell, I guess since they have the entire Brussels apparatus imposing low-to-none tariffs on raw materials and prohibitively high ones on products competing with theirs[1], they could easily afford to be generous on minor things. Just read the quote below and imagine how would a food-processing company from a third-world country ever be able to compete? (no way). 1. https://brexitcentral.com/eu-thousands-senseless-tariffs-punish-poor/ https://brexitcentral.com/eu-thousands-senseless-tariffs-pun... "The tariff on orange imports is far from being the least justifiable of the EU’s many thousands of tariffs. Consider coffee. There are a number of different tariff schedules on coffee imports and the general idea underlying them is that raw materials get zero or very low tariffs, but the processed coffee imports that compete with EU coffee processors currently attract tariffs of up to 11.5 percent."
- pbowyer 8y agoBrexit Central's assertion about coffee is completely untrue. Most coffee producers pay zero tariffs, and it's a matter of logistical difficulties at a local level that stops coffee producing nations exporting roast coffee. Not the EU. Here's a long thread, with references so you can fact check it, on this exact topic. https://twitter.com/Jim_Cornelius/status/959584192517562369 https://twitter.com/Jim_Cornelius/status/959584192517562369
- growlist 8y agoI suppose that attempting to limit further damage is a good start - so how's about they now actually buy some cleared land and reforest it? Until then no more Cadbury's for me, though TBH since they sold out to this US megacorp the quality has gone to shit.
- syn0byte 8y agoIn unrelated news; Mondelez launches a new Indonesian agriculture export subsidiary...
- neves 8y agoThis is great news. Now that environment policy will become a secondary issue for Brazilian Gov, just economic pressure will preserve our forests.
- pesenti 8y agoSerious question: should I stop eating Nutella?
- adimitrov 8y agoSerious answer: yes. It's terrible for you and contains palm oil. There are better alternatives.
- doombolt 8y agoI like how Europe (and USA to some extent) destroyed their forests and biodiversity long ago, and now are pushing other, poorer societies to preserve biodiversity for the whole world while staying poor. If you're so concerned about forests why don't you grow some yourself instead of bullying other countres? Expecting a lot of dislikes from Bay Area which is a huge plot of ecosystems destroyed for profit.
- ip26 8y agoThe deforested parts of the world absolutely should work to reforest. But, the rainforest is some of the most important ecosystem on the planet, containing more biodiversity than anywhere else (except maybe coral reefs) and providing globally valuable ecosystem services like carbon sequestration. Therefore it is extremely high on the priority list. It's also usually more cost effective to avoid destroying something than to restore something.
- Mononokay 8y agoDon't mention you're expecting downvotes on HN, etcetera.
- jnurmine 8y agoI had never seen a palm oil operation. However, I read through and started following the blog of Taneli Roininen (http://www.gonebikefishing.com/ http://www.gonebikefishing.com/) who is bicycling around the world before his major heart operation. There are plenty of pictures and somehow I could relate to what he wrote, seeing vividly his pedalling, hearing the sounds and feeling the wind in my minds eye. When his trails went by palm oil plantations, one could really feel the scale and impact, as well as his frustration. It made the whole palm oil industry more concrete in some strange way... they are big and destructive.
- arthurofbabylon 8y agoCynics abound on hacker news. Meanwhile, looking at this article with a systems perspective, this is incredibly good news. Large operational entities realizing that they are most performant when accountable to the public is a very, very good sign.
- cyberpunk0 8y agoI mean call me cynical but this wouldn't have happened if they didn't get bad press about it recently
- arthurofbabylon 8y agoI find it so odd that people complain about a system enforcing efficiency and sustainability. For example, I would never say in a whiny voice, “that plant only grows because it gets watered!” or “that student only works hard for good grades!” or “that product is only good because the brand wants to make more money!” My point is: the why is less important to observe than the how. In this case, the WHY is that this company is just looking out for its own interests (it’s obvious, that’s what they do). HOW is it looking out for it’s own interests? By recognizing that it needs to be accountable to the critical, ethical public. That is super cool and very interesting.
- cyberpunk0 8y agoQuite a naive defense there. If they truly we're a good company they would had modified their corporate behavior long before they got caught. The fact they didn't do anything until they got caught just shows they never had an intention of doing a damn thing about it until they were forced to and they will most likely continue that pattern in the future.
- newnewpdro 8y ago12 from how many?
- VBprogrammer 8y agoIs there a potential for this to go wrong? I know deforistation is the problem, but isn't it just as likely that these producers will start producing oils from other sources. Potentially annuals like corn.
- drkl 8y agoGood job