Nature Alert: Sainsbury’s pledges to use sustainable palm oil to protect endangered habitats

Wednesday 21 November 2007

Sainsbury’s pledges to use sustainable palm oil to protect endangered habitats

November 21, 2007

Sainsbury’s pledges to use sustainable palm oil to protect endangered habitats

Sainsbury's has announced that the palm oil used in it's own brand food will now come from certified sustainable sources. The first food on UK supermarket shelves to contain certified sustainable palm oil will be Sainsbury's Basics Fish Fingers that will convert by May 2008.

This is another UK first for Sainsbury's, once again showing it's leadership in responsible sourcing, and means that nearly eight million fish fingers will contain certified sustainable palm oil making an everyday food more ethical. The fish fingers are also Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) approved.

Increased demand for palm oil is potentially an environmental catastrophe impacting on climate change, deforestation, the habitats of orangutans, as well as local communities.

Also, by July 2008 Sainsbury's will be the first supermarket to sell soap that contains certified sustainable palm oil. This is approximately three million bars every year.

Providing honest and transparent labelling for its customers, Sainsbury's will also be the first supermarket to label the use of palm oil in all its food. Labelling will be completed on its fresh and chilled food by July 2008.

This news comes as the annual fifth Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) conference takes place in Malaysia this week. Known as RT5, the conference will involve key growers, processors, manufacturers, retailers and policy makers who are meeting to discuss standards for the certification and sourcing of sustainable palm oil.

Judith Batchelar, Director of Sainsbury's brand, said: "From soap to biscuits, palm oil is in thousands of everyday food and beauty items wherever you shop.

Rather than banning the use of palm oil, we want to find a sustainable solution that will stop deforestation while continuing to support the communities that rely on its production.

Hall of Shame for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Palm Oil Industry.

Nothing can prepare one for the sight of the systematic extermination of orangutans by the government of Indonesia.

Look at the photos and news articles on these pages in the context of a statement the President made to the media on 10th December 2007.

“In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

“The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests … To save the orangutan we have to save the forest.”

Statements like these are most welcome, but unless backed up by action, such words fall on deaf ears within the Ministry of Forestry....who are busy granting licences to cut down the very forests the President says they should protect!

When you think you are to busy to help, please could you reflect for a moment on .........

The following extract refers to environmental problems in general. I just hope you find it as thought provoking and relevant to orangutans as I have.

"This is such a shocking and unpalatable fact that most people deny it, or they just don't want to think about it. They believe as individuals, they can do little about it, so push it to the back of their minds. But I can't do that.

When something has to be done, we need to do it. It doesn't matter how big the challenge is or how hard the solution; if I know something is wrong, and I am in a position to help, I will do my best to make it right." Duncan Bannatyne, successful British businessman.