Cosmetics retailer announces sustainable palm oil initiative
Cosmetics retailer announces sustainable palm oil initiative
mongabay.com
July 12, 2007
The Body Shop International today introduced a sustainable palm oil initiative, the first for the beauty industry. The company said the move was spurred by growing concerns over the impact of oil palm plantations on biodiversity.
Orangutan in Borneo |
The Body Shop will now source its palm oil to a Daabon, a certified organic producer in Colombia. The company’s demand for the vegetable oil equates to 14.5 million bars of soap per year.
“The switch to sustainable palm oil is a landmark step forward for The Body Shop and a potentially groundbreaking development for the whole cosmetics industry,” said Peter Saunders, Chief Executive Officer of The Body Shop. “Many people who use soap everyday will be unaware that they are contributing to a major environmental catastrophe: the destruction of ancient rainforests and the extinction of endangered species. Our ambition is for the majority of the world’s palm oil production to be sustainable within the next two to three years but this will not be achieved by The Body Shop in isolation — our decision must inspire other businesses to join us and tackle the problem head on.”
The Body Shop is part of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a group that seeks to reduce the environmental impact of palm oil production. About 250 organizations are involved with the initiative.
“The Body Shop is the first global cosmetics company to introduce sustainable palm oil into its product lines. This is the start of the growth of sustainable palm oil in the cosmetics sector and we hope that many more companies will follow suit,” said Matthias Diemer, palm oil expert at WWF Switzerland. “We also applaud the pioneering role The Body Shop has taken in helping to formulate strong standards for sustainable palm oil production through the RSPO.”
Oil palm is the most productive oil seed in the world. A single hectare of oil palm may yield 5,000 kilograms of crude oil, or nearly 6,000 liters of crude, making the crop remarkably profitable when grown in large plantations. As such, vast swathes of land are being converted for oil palm plantations. Oil palm cultivation has expanded in Indonesia from 600,000 hectares in 1985 to more than 6 million hectares by early 2007, and is expected to reach 10 million hectares by 2010. In 2007 alone, some 1.3 million hectares of forest in Borneo will be cleared for new plantations.
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