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Unilever targeted in palm oil protests

Monday, 21 April 2008

Greenpeace campaigners have staged protests at Unilever sites in London and Merseyside.

Protesters dressed as orang-utans were joined by campaigners playing jungle noises at top volume outside the firm's head office at Blackfriars, London, and at the firm's plant at Port Sunlight, Wirral, on Monday morning.

Dozens of protestors breached security and chained themselves to production lines and vats of palm oil at the factory.

Greenpeace said that it wanted to draw attention to the use of palm oil by Unilever and other firms and the destruction of tropical rain forests.

Unilever is the world's largest corporate consumer of palm oil and palm oil derivatives, with around half of its annual consumption of 1.3 million tonnes of palm oil coming from Indonesia.

Greenpeace accused Unilever of failing to use its purchasing power to stop the wholesale destruction of rainforests and peat grounds on the Indonesian island of Borneo.

Unilever admitted to using palm oil in some of its products but said it also had a long history of promoting sustainability.

The company pointed out that it chairs the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), which it described as "a wide-ranging coalition of organisations" including OXFAM, WWF, plantation owners, and manufacturers and retailers.

"In November the RSPO agreed criteria for sustainable palm oil production. These new criteria address many of Greenpeace's concerns," Unilever said in a statement.

It said problems were caused by "exploded" demand for palm oil due partly to growing demand from India and China and also due to the use of palm oil as a feedstock for biofuels in the energy sector.

"It is essential that all those involved sign up to agreed criteria to make sustainability work on the ground, but this is not an easy process and is taking longer than we would all like. Nevertheless, we remain absolutely committed to finding a solution," Unilever concluded.

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