This post originally appeared on the blog of Greenpeace International
In responding to consumers very real and very serious concerns, it’s The Tale of Two Corporations:
One makes a clear promise with ambitious timelines; the other continues as if its business as usual. This is the difference between Mars and Procter & Gamble.
Today Mars promised to remove forest destruction from all of its products by the end of 2015.
Nobody wants their everyday products to be made at the expense of destruction of forests and the danger of driving tigers and orangutans toward extinction. And when we all speak with one voice, this is the result. Mars has joined a growing list of companies who are committing to cleaning up their supply chains. Nestle, Unilever, LOreal, Ferrero have done it. So have a whole lot of others. Check out a full list here.
This should be a wake up call for the folks at P&G.
Ever since we revealed how P&G is sourcing dirty palm oil linked to forest destruction, its spokespeople have offered no real solutions. Instead, they have recycled the same old lines about being committed to so-called sustainability. With every company that commits to No Deforestation, P&Gs sustainability policy looks more and more shaky. As our activists in Indonesia showed today, this is what sustainability looks like for P&G:
Greenpeace activists hold a banner inside palm oil consession owned by PT Multi Persada Gatramegah (PT MPG), a subsidiary of Musim Mas company, a palm oil supplier to Procter and Gamble in Muara Teweh, North Barito, Central Kalimantan.
This morning, a dozen activists unfurled a giant banner in a plantation owned by Musim Mas. We have identified that company as being involved in ongoing forest and orangutan habitat clearance. It is alsoa supplier to P&G This is not sustainable at least not according to the half a million of you who have already called for forest-friendly products.
A Greenpeace activist holds a banner inside palm oil consession owned by PT Multi Persada Gatramegah (PT MPG), a subsidiary of Musim Mas company, a palm oil supplier to Procter and Gamble in Muara Teweh, North Barito, Central Kalimantan.
What should P&G do?
P&G must join other companies like Nestle, Unilever, Ferrero, LOreal, and now Mars. All of them have committed to No Deforestation policies. These companies recognize that the body P&G relies on to certify sustainably sourced palm oil the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil is not enough.
As my colleague in the US, Joao, recently said,blindly trusting the RSPO, like P&G does, is like buying a used car without checking it out first. You might just end up with a lemon. In this case, P&G doesnt even seem to care enough to investigate its own claims.
