“Whether we like it or not it is very largely our industry which is providing the economic incentives for individuals and companies to chop down trees… Between us, we spend billions of dollars buying these commodities. We can make a difference if we buy them differently and better.” – A senior Unilever executive in a speech to the Consumer Goods Forum to persuade the 300 Forum members to work together to end deforestation

While it is without question significant that Cargill just publicly committed to supplying Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)-certified palm oil to all of its customers around the world by 2020, the announcement doesn’t mean that Cargill’s customers should stop pushing Cargill to deliver  responsibly sourced palm oil as soon as possible.

Cargill is not off the hook just yet, so Cargill customers — it’s not time to wipe that sweat from your brow.

General Mills, Girl Scouts USA, Kellogg’s, Safeway, Wal-Mart, Proctor & Gamble, Nestle, Unilever, Ventura Foods, McDonald’s and Green Earth Fuels, to name a few: your palm oil purchasing expectations still aren’t being met by Cargill. Cargill has not yet put in place the palm oil supply chain safeguard requirements that leading corporations are demanding.

Why does this matter? These popular brand names are still at risk as long as Cargill can’t assure its customers that its palm oil is not tainted with ties to rainforest destruction and/or slave labor.

For companies that already have a palm oil policy in place and/or agree that Cargill’s tacit commitments aren’t enough to protect their consumer brands from the heated controversy associated with palm oil, here are a couple of things you can do:

1. Demand that Cargill adopt basic supply chain safeguards. Reason: Until RSPO certification takes into account greenhouse gas emissions and can assure the respect of native land rights and elimination of slave labor, we recommend you push Cargill to adopt push Cargill to adopt key environmental, social and transparency safeguards for its global supply chain.
2. Demand that Cargill go beyond mass balance and provide fully segregated palm oil for all your supply chains. Reason: Mass balance refers to a system that allows for mixing certified, fully segregated palm oil with non-certified oil at any stage of the supply chain. This system supports the production of RSPO-certified palm oil but does not ensure customers like you that the palm oil you’re purchasing is not driving up demand for palm oil that is connected to rainforest destruction and human rights violations. Demand that Cargill improves the palm oil industry by moving quickly to fully segregated palm oil, which essentially means that you would be able to trace the palm oil you buy back to responsible sources.
3. Demand RSPO Plus. Reason: In addressing the severe problems with the current palm oil industry, Cargill is putting all its eggs in one basket, the RSPO. Unfortunately, that basket is riddled with holes. RSPO standards are weak in a number of areas. As an example, RSPO certification in its current form does nothing to address and reduce climate change impacts from palm oil production, particularly on peat lands, which science tells us is contributing to record greenhouse gas emissions. RSPO Plus means starting with RSPO Certification and putting in place the additional environmental, social and transparency safeguards needed for a credible certification standard that will eliminate controversy in your supply chain.
4. Push Cargill to accelerate implementation of its certified oil commitments. Reason: Action is needed now to ensure that critical forests and endangered species habitat is not lost before Cargill’s 2015 and 2020 commitments take effect. Palm oil is a leading cause of Indonesia’s deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and loss of critical orangutan habitat. The next five years are crucial. The sad reality is that the world can’t wait until 2015, let alone 2020, for greater corporate leadership.

If you’re a U.S. company with palm oil in your supply chain, it’s now quite clear that action is needed urgently. The importance of ensuring an ethical supply chain is growing by the day as companies are becoming increasingly vulnerable to internal and external scrutiny from customers, NGOs, and even CEOs risking brand damage and profits. Cargill won’t make bold moves unless you, as its customers, demand it.

Cargill is the largest importer of palm oil into the US, supplying most food companies in America. Last week, Rainforest Action Network uncovered an alarming connection linking Cargill’s palm oil imports to slave labor on the island of Borneo.

Here’s the scoop. Kuala Lumpur Kepong (KLK)—one of Malaysia’s largest palm oil plantation companies—is the company that I criticized back in my November 2010 blog post with documented testimonials of two palm oil plantation workers who’d encountered 21st century slave labor conditions on the plantations of a KLK subsidiary. The two villagers from Northern Sumatra were lured by representatives of a KLK subsidiary to work in the company’s palm plantations, only to be forced into slave labor conditions for months until they could escape without being paid.

Just last week we confirmed that KLK supplies palm oil to Cargill. Customs data shows that Cargill imported at least 14 shipments of palm oil — totaling at least 10,000 tons — from Kepong Edible Oils (a fully owned subsidiary of KLK) between October 2008 and March 2011.

As we stated in our press release:

Cargill is buying its oil from companies connected to some of the very worst examples of corporate environmental destruction and human rights abuses. This is yet another of many examples RAN has identified in our three years of campaigning on Cargill that demonstrates the immediate need for the company to adopt a comprehensive palm oil policy.

Until Cargill adopts the following basic safeguards, the company can’t guarantee to American consumers that slave labor is not ending up in their food:

SOCIAL SAFEGUARDS – A commitment to resolve social and land rights tenure conflicts, a no-trade position for growers using child or slave labor, adherence to obtaining free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) of forest-dependent communities before lands are acquired or developed, and a commitment to implement the United Nations “protect, respect and remedy” framework for human rights.*

ENVIRONMENTAL SAFEGUARDS – A commitment to reduce biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions by ending the expansion of palm oil plantations into High Conservation Value (HCV) areas including critical habitat, peatlands and High Carbon Stock forests and/or remaining natural forests.

PUBLIC TRANSPARENCY – A commitment to transparent and consistent reporting of metrics and targets as well as regular stakeholder and rights-holder engagement.

As if being implicated in slave labor wasn’t enough damage for Cargill’s brand in one week, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and its Indonesia partner, Telapak, recently exposed a juicy scandal that implicates Cargill in a dirty mess of illegal logging through its ties to the same company—KLK.

The evidence provided by EIA and Telapak proves that KLK cleared carbon-rich peat forest in Indonesia’s Central Kalimantan province illegally as the company failed to secure proper licenses. This scandal was documented on the very first day of Indonesia’s logging moratorium — a cornerstone of Norway’s $1 billion climate deal with Indonesia. According to the report, the Norwegian Government has a $41.5 million shareholding in KLK, thereby standing to profit from the company’s recently exposed illegal clearance.

TAKE ACTION

Ask Cargill to adopt basic supply chain safeguards to prevent palm oil that causes rainforest destruction and human rights violations from tainting America’s food supply.

**A commitment to implement the United Nations “protect, respect and remedy framework” over civil and political, social, economic, cultural and environmental rights of affected communities and vulnerable groups of indigenous peoples, migrant workers, women and children. – Human Right Council, March 2011. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework

RSPO Certified: "Sustainable" Palm Oil?

What is Sustainable Palm Oil? Part one of a three-part series.

Palm oil has become an increasingly hot topic over the last year. This thick, long-lasting oil is found in almost half of all consumer goods sold in grocery stores and it is also a main driver of rainforest destruction in Indonesia and Malaysia.

As controversy over the oil and its role in deforestation increases, so do calls for the oil to be made more sustainably. The real question, however, is: Can palm oil ever be made sustainably? This series is dedicated to exploring just that question.

Both businesses and consumers who are concerned about palm oil often look to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) as the answer to the problem with palm oil. The RSPO is a voluntary initiative that aims to create a certification standard for “sustainable” oil palm. Nine percent of the world’s palm oil production is now certified according to the RSPO’s latest figures. Those who have some or all of their plantations certified under the RSPO include IOI, Kuala Lumpur Kepong (KLK) and Cargill.

But is RSPO-certified palm oil truly sustainable? The trick with most certification standards is that it they can either help businesses to improve their practices in a systematic way or they can systematically greenwash business-as-usual practices. The RSPO is a little of both.

As our allies at Greenpeace put it: “The aim of the [RSPO] is to create clear standards for producing sustainable palm oil but at present these standards are far too weak to ensure that forests and peatlands are not destroyed to meet growing demand for palm oil.”

As I’ve written in previous blog posts, sourcing RSPO-certified palm oil is a major step forward from sourcing from suppliers who are just RSPO members. But even with certification, there are major concerns. A few of the weaknesses of RSPO-certified palm oil include:

1. Lack of Environmental Safeguards: Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions standards are not included in RSPO’s certification process. This means that draining and clearing peatlands — the largest single source of our planet’s stored carbon and one of the most powerful defense mechanisms against climate change — is permissible.
2. Lack of Social Safeguards: Although the social safeguards in RSPO’s certification criteria look good on paper, they are seldom followed. This was evidenced recently by one of the RSPO’s founding members, IOI Group, which is currently under major global scrutiny for breaching RSPO Code of Conduct with serious human rights abuses.
3. Lack of Transparency and Enforcement: In the case of IOI, the RSPO announced in April 2011 that IOI would face sanctions if the company didn’t resolve its social conflict by May 2, 2011. It is now more than a month past that deadline and the RSPO has not done anything to reprimand IOI. Meanwhile the social conflict has escalated.

If companies like Cargill are going to rely on the RSPO then they need to actively work to improve it — and that means more than simply continuing “to work with the Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI) and the Indonesian government to advocate for sustainable palm oil development,” as stated in its 2010 and 2011 Palm Oil Commitments. If you want to know more about these industry groups whose mandate is to expand palm oil at any cost, stay tuned for the next part of our three-part series.

Girl Scouts Rhiannon & Madi's plea for a meeting with Girl Scouts USA CEO continues to be ignored

Will Girl Scouts USA CEO Kathy Cloninger make the right choice for future generations of Girl Scouts or not?

Last week a reporter from Madi & Rhiannon’s hometown published a powerful piece in their local paper: “Child Labor, orangutans and Thin Mints: Two renegade Girl Scouts raise questions about palm oil used in popular cookies.” The article sheds light on Girl Scouts USA’s latest position on the controversy surrounding the use of palm oil in its Girl Scout cookies. The quotes from spokeswoman Michelle Tomkins are particularly helpful to us in understanding where  Girl Scouts USA stands organizationally, because even though we’ve now sent CEO Kathy Cloninger two letters, we have yet to receive a response.

The spokeswoman for Girl Scouts USA says that the organization has “little say if not no say in the recipes used by the bakers.” But clearly if the Girl Scouts organization puts their logo on a box of cookies that it expects millions of young girls across the country to peddle on its behalf, the organization has to approve of the recipe, right?

Via its spokeswoman, Girl Scouts USA says its hands are tied. Tomkins says that in 2006, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began requiring unhealthy trans fats to be listed on the Nutrition Facts labels on manufactured food products, the two Girl Scout cookie bakers had to rid the cookies of trans fats. Palm oil is the alternative to trans fats that the bakers came up with. So Tomkins’ claim is that what goes in Girl Scout cookies is really up to the bakers and that the “two bakers the organization uses have no plans to change the recipe.” But, “that could change,” Tompkins told AnnArbor.com.

Yes, it could change. But it won’t until Girl Scouts USA demands it.

Unless the two bakers are forced by another U.S. Food and Drug Administration law to change their recipe, they will continue palm oil business as usual in favor of efficiency and profit, as palm oil is by far the cheapest vegetable oil. But if Girl Scouts USA, — which a) pays the bakers to make its cookies, b) approves the recipes, and c) is comfortable putting its logo on the cookie boxes — requests that its bakers change Girl Scout cookie recipes, then by all means they would have to or else lose the business of GSUSA!

If the two bakers changed their cookie recipes to void the cookies of trans fats upon the request of the FDA, they will change the cookie recipes to void the cookies of rainforest destruction and orangutan extinction. But only if GSUSA demands it.

Girl Scouts USA needs a palm oil policy to guide its cookie business. Right now the organization cannot promise its girls that the cookies they work so hard to sell don’t contain rainforest destruction.

“Kids should not have to choose between selling cookies and getting to camp or choosing rainforest deforestation and orangutan extinction. There are links to slave labor as well,” Madison Vorva said. “There should be no human rights abuses occurring in Girl Scout cookies either.”

Please take action right now to pump up the volume on Madi & Rhiannon’s message to Girl Scouts USA.

Step 1 – Twitter :

#Rainforest destruction doesn’t belong in your cookies @GirlScouts USA. Your girls deserve better. http://chn.ge/g5YKTZ via @RAN RT!

Step 2 – Facebook:

“Like” the Girl Scouts of the USA on Facebook, and then copy/paste this message onto their wall: I am disappointed to see rainforest destroying palm oil still in Girl Scout cookies. I’d like to see Girl Scout cookies be rainforest safe by your100th anniversary!

Sinar Mas Clearing Forest in West Kalimantan, Making Room for Palm Plantations. Photo: Greenpeace

Sinar Mas Group, the notorious international palm oil pariah, recently made a remarkable announcement: The company’s subsidiary, Golden Agri Resouces (GAR), intends to implement a forest conservation policy. Among other things, GAR’s Forest Conservation Policy commits it to a goal of “no new development” on peat lands, High Conservation Value Forest areas or High Carbon Landscapes, respecting Indigenous and local communities, and achievement of RSPO certification for all its holdings by 2015.

Well, sounds good on paper, right?

The announcement is significant for several reasons. First, it demonstrates that global grassroots market pressure campaigns are working. When Indonesia’s largest palm oil producer — whose environmentally and socially egregious production practices have made it the poster child of everything that is wrong with the palm oil industry — announces its intention to move, it’s clear that our message is starting to get through. GAR’s announcement follows years of worldwide negative press and international contract cancellations, most recently from major high-profile companies including General Mills, Burger King, Nestle and HSBC.

Second, while the announcement recycles a number of previous GAR commitments, it is the first time a major palm oil supplier has set clear criteria defining High Carbon Landscapes (HCL). This is a hugely important benchmark for the entire palm oil industry in Indonesia as well as for the pulp and paper sector. (Interestingly, Sinar Mas Group also owns the largest and most notorious pulp and paper producer in Indonesia, Asia Pulp and Paper.) The RSPO needs to include this benchmark in its standards, and it deserves to also be embraced and codified by the government as it moves forward with actions to reduce deforestation — including the upcoming moratorium on forest conversion expected from the President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Carbon emissions from massive corporate-led deforestation and peatland destruction in Indonesia have vaulted it to a third place ranking as the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter after China and the US.  GAR’s HCL criteria are set at a “provisional 35 tons of carbon per hectare,” which should take most valuable standing forest off the table and shift expansion to more degraded lands. GAR, working with forest consultants Tropical Forest Trust, will be doing a study to assess this benchmark over the next 6 months.

Most importantly, however, is what GAR’s announcement says about Cargill.

If GAR is willing to step forward and make such overdue commitments publicly, why isn’t Cargill doing the same for its palm oil business? Cargill needs to clean up its palm oil supply chain and insist on what GAR is promising from ALL of its palm oil suppliers (as well as on Cargill’s own palm oil plantations). Cargill trades an estimated 20-25% of global palm oil production. As long as Cargill continues to trade in unsustainably produced palm oil, the company is a huge part of the problem.

In a recent article dissecting GAR’s new policy, CSR veteran David Logan, who is tasked with helping usher GAR into 21^st Century corporate social responsibility, notes that he’s making sure GAR has a vested interest in improved transparency. Wait a minute, did he say Transparency? What a concept for a massive palm oil company! The kind of transparency he’s advocating is exactly the type of consistent public reporting we’re looking for in a Cargill policy.

Taken just at face value, GAR’s commitments represent a positive signal, both for the company and more widely for the palm oil industry. When even a palm oil pariah like GAR says it will go to bat for forest protection, other major palm oil players like Cargill are going to have to get more serious about their commitments to clean up their palm oil business.

Join our campaign to get Cargill to implement a palm oil policy that ensures that all the palm oil they purchase and trade doesn’t come from rainforest destruction or slave labor, whether from third party suppliers or Cargill’s own plantations — where the company is both destroying the rainforest and abusing worker’s rights.

Sign our petition and ask Cargill to show real leadership in making sure that rainforests aren’t cut down for palm oil.

One last thought: As Mr. Logan raised in his discussion about GAR’s uphill journey towards corporate social responsibility, GAR’s new policy announcement begs us to revisit an important question about the RSPO. If one of the worst players in the industry has essentially committed to surpass the RSPO’s principles and criteria, that calls into question whether or not the RSPO — the only certification criteria that commands any significant percent of the palm oil market — has strong enough standards to make a real difference on the ground in Indonesia.

The 2011 Public Eye People’s Award, determined by over 50,000 people through online voting, went to Finnish agrofuel company Neste Oil. Congratulate Neste Oil for this award on their Feedback Page!

Only the most evil corporate offenders appeared on the shortlist of the Public Eye Awards. The award is handed out at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, which concluded yesterday. The Berne Declaration and Greenpeace Switzerland run the Public Eye Awards contest every year to “honor” those corporations whose social or ecological behavior “stinks to high heaven.” Civil society names and shames corporations for exploitative working conditions, calculated environmental sins, intentional disinformation, or other disregard for corporate social responsibility, and then the winners get an international spotlight on their corporate scandals.

This year the web-based Public Eye People’s Award mobilized more than twice as many voters as in 2010, and Neste Oil cleaned up with 17,385 votes, relegating BP (13,000) and Philip Morris (8,052) to runner-up status. The Finnish biofuel producer sells bio-diesel Europe-wide under the shameless name “Green Diesel.” The huge jump in demand for palm oil is fueling massive, widespread rainforest destruction in Indonesia and Malaysia, threatening the remaining refuges of the already endangered orangutan.

Neste Oil Fueling Orangutan Extinction. Photo: GP Finland

What many don’t know is that Neste Oil is about to become the world’s largest buyer of palm oil. The company has developed a technology that allows for a much higher percentage of palm oil biodiesel to be used in cars, and can also turn palm oil into jet fuel. Neste Oil has entered into agreements with Lufthansa and Finnair to supply biofuels for passenger flights.

That’s right, Lufthansa Airlines will soon fly with Neste Oil, whose Indonesian- and Malaysian-based agrofuels are a key driver of deforestation, human rights abuses and climate change.

Neste Oil sources the majority of its palm oil from the IOI Corporation, which is responsible for large-scale rainforest and peatland destruction and violations of people’s land rights in Malaysia and Indonesia. IOI is one of the companies behind plans to destroy another 1 million hectares of rainforest that are home to indigenous communities in Sarawak, Borneo.

Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has been outspoken against biofuels for years — check out our White Paper: Agrofuels are Not Low Carbon for more info on just how farcical the idea that industrial biofuels are any kind of a green solution really is. The reality is that biofuels cause increasing tropical deforestation, higher global warming emissions, escalating food prices, growing hunger for the most vulnerable populations, eroding land rights and worsened food security.

Smallholder palm plantations may be small in West Africa, but in Indonesia and Malaysia the picture is grim for communities and forests

Did you see The New York Times Op-Ed on Saturday titled “The World Bank’s Palm Oil Mistake“? I sure did.

The author, Thompson Ayodele, provided a narrow perspective on the World Bank’s recent decision to continue it’s freeze on new lending to palm oil projects around the world until it’s framework and strategy is clarified. In his lopsided “Greens vs. the Poor” argument, Ayodele argues that the World Bank’s decision is unfair because people in countries like Nigeria depend on palm oil for economic development.

What Ayodele fails to understand is that though palm oil may be a successful development mechanism in countries like Nigeria and Ghana, where smallholder farmers control more than 90 percent of palm oil production, in Indonesia and Malaysia, the lion’s share of palm oil operations that the World Bank’s loans contribute to are large scale, export-based palm oil plantations that cause land conflicts and widespread species extinction, not to mention destroy irreplaceable rainforests that keep massive global climate change at bay.

Illegal burning of peatswamps for palm oil development in Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo: Aidenvironment

The Bank’s lending arm, the IFC, came under fire in early September when Sawit Watch and Indonesian allies garnered almost 200 signatures from organizations around the world pleading the IFC to halt funding destructive palm oil development in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Indonesia and Malaysia together produce almost 90% of the world’s palm oil supply which ends up in millions of day to day products found in U.S. markets such as Revlon eyeliner, Nabisco oreo cookies and thousands of “healthy, organic” food alternatives such as Organic Valley granola bars.

Since 1965, the World Bank has channeled nearly $2 billion for 45 projects in the palm oil sector in 12 nations across Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Indonesia has been a major focus of the financing, receiving $618.8 million of the total funding.

But last year, the World Bank could no longer ignore the complaints and in August 2009, World Bank President Robert Zoellick suspended all palm oil funding and announced a comprehensive palm oil strategy. The World Bank Group is “developing its global approach in the palm oil sector through an open and participatory process, engaging a diverse group of stakeholders. The approach will outline a set of principles to guide the World Bank Group’s future engagement in the palm oil sector with the key goal of maximizing development outcome for the communities and minimizing adverse social and environmental impacts of the sector.”

However,the new World Bank Draft Framework for Palm Oil is a farce in the eyes of many community groups.

Walmart Commits to Sustainable Palm in Private Labels Globally by 2015. Photo: Galaygobi

Two days before Ayodele’s Op-Ed appeared in the New York Times criticizing the World Bank, palm oil came under attack by another big W: Walmart. Walmart announced its commitment to sustainable palm in all of their private labels by 2015, following in the tracks of General Mills, Nestle, and Unilever.

According to Mongabay,

“This is an important signal from a major market actor, also key for the Chinese market. Oxfam has modestly supported palm oil allies in the lobby to achieve this. Sourcing sustainable palm oil for their U.K. (Asda) and U.S. private brand products alone will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 million metric tons by the end of 2015. The second key element is on beef: only from sources that do not contribute to the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.”

Sustainable Palm Production? Photo: Lon & Queta

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) 8^th Annual Meeting is coming up November 8-11^th in Jakarta. RAN’s rainforest agribusiness team will be there.

Indonesia is the world’s 3rd largest greenhouse gas emitter, after the U.S. and China, due to the rapid conversion of the forest country’s valuable rainforests for the expansion of two insatiable, destructive industries: palm oil & pulp and paper.

So why would RAN attend a mostly pro-palm oil industry meeting? Well, for starters, we’re going to make sure that Cargill feels the heat for breaking it’s promise and continuing business as usual with rainforest destroyer Sinar Mas.

What will happen between the RSPO and the palm oil producer, rainforest destroyer, and RSPO member: Sinar Mas? And what will Cargill do if one of their key suppliers gets kicked out of the RSPO? This could be one juicy show!

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil is in charge of monitoring the actions of its members to make sure that they follow its required code of conduct.  In theory, if a member of the RSPO is violating that code, there is a grievance process to file a complaint, evaluate the grievance, and require action from the company or dismiss them from the RSPO. This grievance process is critical if membership in the RSPO is to have any meaning.

For the first time ever the RSPO seems to actually be doing its job. Now we’re all waiting and watching to see if they actually see it through and take a stand against some of the world’s biggest rainforest villains.

On September 16th, in the wake of an audit confirming accusations of environmental abuses by the controversial Indonesian palm oil supplier Sinar Mas, Cargill announced its decision to continue business as usual with the disgraced palm oil provider claiming that it was “satisfied” with the company.

Banners Dropped on Cargill the Morning RSPO Publicly Censured Sinar Mas. Photo: Linda Wells/RAN

To add insult to injury, on September 23rd (the same day we dropped two billboard sized banners outside of Cargill’s downtown Minneapolis Grain Exchange office) the RSPO announced that they are publicly censuring Sinar Mas – a decision that could lead to Sinar Mas getting kicked out of the RSPO.

As the Jakarta Globe reports:

“Members who have been found to not be in compliance and who continue to be in non-compliance with the RSPO regulations could ultimately face sanctions, including the suspension and, eventually, the termination, of their membership of the RSPO.”

Cargill has been under increased public scrutiny for continuing to purchase palm oil from Sinar Mas since this announcement that the RSPO is taking action to possibly sanction Sinar Mas for breaking the rules.

This is quite significant for two reasons. First, it marks the first time in history since it’s creation in 2003 that the RSPO is taking action to hold its member companies accountable for violating RSPO Principles and Criteria. Secondly, despite the announcement making clear Sinar Mas’ culpability for rainforest destruction, Cargill is failing to keep its promise, which was to drop Sinar Mas as a suppier if the company was found to be destroying rainforests.

Cargill’s lack of action on Sinar Mas has disappointed several U.S. companies who are actively seeking responsible sources of palm oil.

General Mills Joins Race to Protect Rainforests!

Yesterday marked a huge shift in the U.S. food industry – it’s now official that the world’s sixth largest food company is taking concrete action to address their controversial sourcing of palm oil from Cargill.

I attended General Mills’ annual shareholder meeting on Monday in Minneapolis, MN, and listened intently as CEO Ken Powell addressed several hundred of his company shareholders. After the usual 20 min. financial reports and marketing strategies overview, he addressed two two issues in his presentation that were of particular importance to the company: Palm Oil and Water Conservation.

CEO Ken Powell made it very clear that his company would work hard to push their palm oil suppliers (Cargill is their key palm oil supplier) to make real changes on the ground in Indonesia to prevent any further rainforest destruction, Indigenous community displacement or species extinction for palm oil expansion.

As I went inside the shareholder meeting with local community member and mother Sharon Sund to make a statement, 40 RAN activists and coalition partners rallied in front of the meeting, holding a big banner reading “General Mills Joins Race to Protect Rainforests” with matching yellow and black balloons and T-Shirts with backs that read “Can Cargill Catch Up?”

Sharon and I met Tom Forsythe, the General Mills rep we’ve been working with over the past 8 months, and he escorted us inside, introduced us to high level staff, and gave us seats at the front of the house.  Sharon and I together made a 4 minute statement inside the meeting and were thanked by two huge rounds of applause from shareholders.

After the meeting CEO Ken Powell came out and shook hands with us and thanked us for our work. Sharon read him a statement from her 11 year old daughter and it was very powerful.

After jointly releasing General Mills’ palm oil policy last Wednesday with a big media splash, marking an end to our public campaign targeting General Mills, we dropped a banner on the Grain Exchange skyway outside of Cargill’s downtown office last Thursday to let Cargill know that now the pressure is really on. Cargill’s palm oil customers are demanding responsible palm oil in the U.S. – will Cargill provide it?

You can watch our statements:

These are the statements we made inside the meeting:

ASHLEY SCHAEFFER, Rainforest Agribusiness Campaigner, Rainforest Action Network:

“My name is Ashley Schaeffer and I am here today on behalf of Rainforest Action Network. As an individual responsible for RAN’s General Mills-focused palm oil campaign, I have been in communication with Tom Forsythe of General Mills since February of this year. I’m here today both to congratulate General Mills on the recent adoption of their benchmark palm oil policy and to express my enthusiasm about working together in the future on the implementation of this policy. But first I’d like to say a few words about why this policy is so important.

Palm oil is found in thousands of consumer products, from soap to cosmetics to breakfast cereal.  Its use is widespread and increasing around the world, but particularly in the U.S., where its consumption has tripled in the last five years. Unfortunately, palm oil is also tightly linked to the destruction of some of the world’s most valuable remaining rainforests, primarily in Indonesia and Malaysia. Increasing consumption has triggered expanded production, replacing once biodiverse rainforests with mono-cropped palm oil plantations.

This unsustainable agriculture model is causing extreme devastation in Indonesia, both socially and environmentally. It’s one of the primary reasons that unique species like Sumatran orangutans, tigers and elephants are almost extinct, why many waterways are heavily polluted, and why thousands of Indigenous peoples are displaced from their traditional lands every year.

With such reluctance from large suppliers like Sinar Mas and Cargill to address this issue properly, it’s really up to U.S. food companies who buy palm oil for their products to take leadership on this issue to push their supplier companies to make real changes on the ground in Indonesia.

The recent leadership that General Mills has demonstrated on this issue is a testament to the company’s values. The palm policy is important for General Mills as a company, and for the impact General Mills can have in moving suppliers forward.  There is a long way to go on the issue, and to completely stop the destruction fo the world’s rainforests will require companies like General Mills continuing to demand better standards from suppliers.  We are very much looking forward to working with General Mills on the implementation of this policy, and applaud the goal of 100 percent certified responsible palm oil by 2015.

SHARON SUND, Rainforest Action Network Twin Cities Member and Minneapolis resident:

As a local community member and a mother, I want to thank General Mills for their new policy on palm oil.  This issue is important to me because it is important to my daughter, Jade.  If all of our children knew that we were feeding them breakfast cereal at the expense of rainforests, they would never forgive us.

That is why I am so glad to see that General Mills is making these changes – so we don’t have to suffer the wrath of our children for letting rainforest destruction happen.

I would also like to encourage General Mills to go as deeply into this issue and your commitment as you can, to ensure that your suppliers follow through with the policies that you have endorsed.

I have hope that in one year, we will have seen big changes on how palm oil is being produced in Indonesia, and that here in Minnesota we can feed our children while still sustaining the earth.”

In case you missed all the action last week, check out some of our best media hits below:

FAST COMPANY MAGAZINE:
General Mills Ditches Dirty Palm Oil
http://www.fastcompany.com/1690894/general-mills-ditches-dirty-palm-oil

MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
Demonstrators dangle from skyway in protest against Cargill
http://www.startribune.com/local/103624319.html?elr=KArks:DCiUo3PD:3D_V_qD3L:c7cQKUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUl

USA TODAY:
General Mills boycotts palm oil that destroys rain forestsl
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/09/general-mills-palm-oil-rainforest-destruction/1-oil

ASSOCIATED PRESS:
General Mills changes palm oil policy
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Activists hang banner in Minneapolis

Despite state-wide flood warnings, the skies opened for just enough time to allow five RAN activists to hang two billboard sized banners off of a 3^rd street skyway during morning rush hour today, calling attention to Cargill’s continuing role in the destruction of some of the world’s last remaining rainforests. Reading: “Cargill: #1 Supplier of Rainforest Destruction,” the banners were clearly visible from Cargill’s downtown office in the Grain Exchange.

Five brave activists were arrested and are currently in jail.

Cargill’s refusal to meet the growing demand for responsible palm oil in the US is surprising as several US food companies have made public commitments to stop buying palm oil from suppliers like SMART (part of Sinar Mas Group) and set ambitious goals to source responsibly produced palm oil. Although Cargill has made some initial steps towards the provision of segregated RSPO certified palm oil in Europe, it has failed to do so in the U.S., ignoring the requests of its customers and consumers.

RAN has kept Cargill under fire for its palm oil supply chain for over two years. Although the company has recently taken steps to assess its own plantations and supply chain, Cargill has brushed off promises to cancel from PT SMART (Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology), a supplier frequently pointed to as one of the worst palm oil companies. SMART has been documented clearing and burning rainforests, forcing communities from their lands and destroying peatlands, carbon intensive landscapes whose destruction is widely considered to be some of the worst contributors to climate change.

SMART was censored this morning by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil for “serious non-compliance.”

Cargill is the largest importer of palm oil into the United States, and their palm oil ends up in most US food company supply chains. It’s unacceptable that they are continuing to buy and trade palm oil from some of the worst known suppliers of palm oil. Cargill can and should take action now to protect the world’s remaining rainforests.

“Americans want to see palm oil that isn’t destroying rainforests or orangutans,” said Ashley Schaeffer of RAN. “Cargill is flat out failing to meet the growing demand to put in standards to protect rainforests.”

RAN has been running market campaigns to reduce the impact of American purchases of palm oil on the Indonesian rainforest since 2007.

More information on RAN’s palm oil campaigns can be found at www.theproblemwithpalmoil.org

Cargill Destroys Rainforests: Banner Drop by Local MN Activists at Twins Game

This past Sunday in Minneapolis,  something unusual happened during the local Twins baseball game. Unhappy with the way one of their hometown corporations (and the largest privately owned in the world) is treating rainforests and its inhabitants, local activists unfurled a banner to spoof Cargill’s 8th inning sponsorship ad.

As the Twins pulled into the eighth inning of their closing home game against the Texas Rangers, the crowd was treated to a few unscheduled advertisements. Instead of Cargill’s usual announcements promoting hot dogs, a large banner, hung by activists from the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) Twin Cities, was unfurled from behind home plate, making Cargill’s usual advertisement change to read “Cargill Destroys Rainforests.” Fans started chattering in the stands as the banner was held until stadium officials took it down. No one was arrested.

Cargill regularly sponsors the Twins’ eighth inning at home games, and produces the meat for the stadium’s four types of hot dogs.

“As Minnesota residents, we want to be just as proud of our hometown companies as we are of our hometown team,” said Carrie Anne Johnson of RAN – Twin Cities Chapter. “Right now, Cargill is striking out on rainforests. It’s time for them to step up to the plate and take real action to protect the world’s last remaining rainforests.”

Rainforsts Cleared for Plantations Next to Threatened Watershed. Photo: DesdemonaDespair.net

The banner was intended to highlight the poor environmental record of Cargill, the giant Minneapolis based agribusiness corporation, which is also one of the Twins most loyal hometown sponsors. Cargill is the nation’s leading importer of palm oil, which is destroying rainforests in Indonesia. Cargill owns their own palm oil plantations and is buying palm oil from some of the worst suppliers in Southeast Asia. They’ve been caught polluting waterways, taking land from local communities and destroying rainforests. Many of America’s biggest food companies buy palm oil from Cargill, so their palm oil is in much of America’s foods.

Although the company has agreed to take some steps to evaluate the impacts of its own plantations and supply chains, it has backed out of promises to cancel contracts with Sinar Mas Group, an Indonesian company widely considered to be one of the leading rainforest destroyers in Indonesia.

“Cargill’s been saying that they want to change incrementally,” said Jared Ingebretson of RAN- Twin Cities Chapter. “The rainforest isn’t being destroyed incrementally, however. Cargill needs to act now to stop cutting down rainforests and destroying people’s homes and livelihoods.”

Picked up on local television and seen by thousands of Twins fans, all eyes are now on Cargill. Will they do the right thing and adopt a socially and environmentally responsible palm oil policy?

See the full press release.

Faith Joins Hundreds of Children in Asking Mr. Page to Protect Endangered Sumatran Tigers and Orangutans

Last week, over a dozen local Twin Cities community members, including members of the Walker Church social justice chapter, children, and concerned parents, paid Mr. Page – Cargill CEO – a visit.  The group went all the way to the CEO’s home in Wayzata, MN to deliver hundreds of letters, many hand-written, from children around the world who are very upset that he is not doing enough to protect the imperiled rainforests in Indonesia.

The appeals from the hundreds of kids who wrote these letters to Mr. Page are diverse, but all share one thing in common: disappointment that the head of one of the world’s largest privately owned corporations, Cargill, Inc., is putting corporate profit over the interests of forest communities, endangered species and the climate.

Although Cargill has been taking baby steps in the right direction, the company still has yet to adopt a palm oil policy to ensure that its palm oil production and trading arms aren’t destroying rainforests. And what’s almost worse, Cargill recently showed that they can’t distinguish fact from fiction in their failure to de-list Sinar Mas in the wake of heightened public scrutiny by groups including WWF, with whom Cargill is collaborating.

Hundreds of hand-written letters from kids across the globe delivered to Cargill CEO Greg Page's Wayzata Home

It is worth noting that since RAN released our report highlighting Cargill’s problems with palm oil in Borneo, Cargill has engaged with customers including Kraft and General Mills, initiated a supply chain audit in collabroation with WWF, has plans to assess their own HSL plantation in Borneo, and most recently obtained RSPO certification for its PT Hindoli smallholder plantations. These are all important first steps but until Cargill adopts a palm oil policy that publicly verifies the company’s forest safeguards, Mr. Page is going to hear from thousands of additional concerned children.

Before this peaceful group even got to the CEO’s front gate carrying the hundreds of letters, the police came and kindly asked them to leave, promising he would deliver them to Mr. Page himself. The children were disappointed but hopeful that Mr. Page would read the letters and hear the message loud and clear: Mr. Page: Future Generations are Counting on You!

C'mon Kraft, Make Today Delicious!

For those following the recent developments of palm oil in the news, you know that this hot commodity is becoming increasingly controversial and companies are starting to either push to get the tropical oil out of their supply chain altogether or to adopt a strong palm policy to ensure they are not contributing to rainforest destruction.

Either way, if you’re a U.S. company with palm oil in your supply chain it’s now quite clear that action is becoming inevitable. As Kyra Choucroun recently wrote in the The Guardian:

The commitment of companies like Unilever and Nestlé to sourcing greener supplies can serve as a lesson beyond the palm oil industry, by promoting the importance of ensuring an ethical supply chain. Whilst blacklisting unethical suppliers can have a positive impact on corporate image, failing to adopt a policy of in depth supply chain analysis can render companies vulnerable to attack from all angles, risking customer loyalty and ultimately business development.

And she’s right about that. The importance of ensuring an ethical supply chain is growing by the day as companies are becoming increasingly vulnerable to internal and external scrutiny from customers, NGOs, and even CEOs risking brand damage and profits.

Peatland cleared on Kampar Peninsula. Photo: Ahmad Zamroni/AFP

The most recent company announcing its commitment to responsible palm oil is Kraft Foods.  RAN has been in constructive dialogue with Kraft for almost a year and though the company still has a way to go in order to ensure it’s supply chain is free of rainforest destruction, it is taking small steps in the right direction. For starters, Kraft announced in April of 2010 that it was immediately canceling all direct palm oil contracts with Sinar Mas in an effort to disassociate themselves with the widely known forest destroyer. However, they haven’t cut indirect contracts with Sinar Mas; Kraft still sources palm oil from Cargill even though it’s widely known that Cargill still sources from Sinar Mas.

Kraft, among other customers of Cargill, is strongly urging Cargill to sever ties with Sinar Mas – another indicator that Kraft is taking a leadership role in engaging problematic suppliers to transform the industry. Additionally, Kraft is standing firm with Unilever and others in not falling for the recent Sinar Mas greenwash “audit” which tried to wipe the company clean of rainforest destruction and social controversy to convince companies who cut contracts earlier in the year that their business was now responsible.  

Rainforests smoldering for palm oil in Sumatra. Photo: Constance Cheng/CNN

In recent weeks Kraft sent a “Palm Oil Statement” to RAN, summarizing the food giant’s position on palm oil and highlighting what they’re doing to be a part of the solution short of adopting a palm oil policy. Here are some excerpts from their letter:

We decided to suspend our direct purchases from the Sinar Mas affiliate, Sinar Meadows effective April 1, 2010. The decision to suspend business with Sinar Mas and its affiliates will stay in effect until they clearly demonstrate they comply with local laws and are able to source palm oil sustainably.

In addition to the action described above, we continue to ask our suppliers, including Cargill, to address any indirect supply related to Sinar Mas or its affiliates. We are aware of the recent independent audit of some of Sinar Mas’ palm oil plantations. We are not changing our sourcing decisions in the light of this.

Our suppliers primarily source from Indonesia and Malaysia, with smaller quantities coming from Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and West Africa. We are asking our suppliers to provide solutions and create consensus among stakeholders in addressing the deforestation issue in Indonesia, in particular with regard to strengthening RSPO standards.

When the issue was brought to our attention more than two years ago, we expressed our concern and support for the principle of a moratorium on further deforestation. This requires cooperation from producers (including farmers, cooperatives and post-harvest processors), the food industry, governments and civil society. We are planning to do our part to promote better production standards by purchasing palm oil certificates based on palm oil plantations certified under the RSPO.

Kraft foods supports the goals and efforts of RSPO. However, we believe more needs to be done to enforce guidelines and address deforestation.  RSPO needs to reach broad consensus on its certification standards, in particular with regard to climate change impacts of palm oil production.

The tide is turning.  As a senior Unilever executive put it in a recent speech to the Consumer Goods Forum in London, to persuade the 300 or so members of the Forum to work together to end deforestation, “Whether we like it or not it is very largely our industry which is providing the economic incentives for individuals and companies to chop down trees….Between us, we spend billions of dollars buying these commodities. We can make a difference if we buy them differently and better.”

RAN Activists Take Over Cargill Headquarters: Photo by David Gilbert/RAN

After months of waiting for the results of the Sinar Mas “audit,” the controversial findings are finally public and it’s now up to Cargill executives to decide how they will proceed, i. e. whether or not to sever ties with the company known for its rainforest destruction and unsustainable palm oil practices.

Read our open letter to Cargill below:

August 10, 2010

Mark Murphy
Assistant Vice President, Cargill Corporate Affairs

Mark,

As you know, Sinar Mas released the controversial findings of their PT Smart audit today, with hopes of using it to clear their name of rainforest destruction and social conflict associated with their palm oil plantation operations.  Rainforest Action Network stands with Greenpeace, Unilever, and many others in rejecting this audit as being neither comprehensive nor representative of PT SMART’s palm oil operations.  We hope that you’ll view this attempted greenwash by Sinar Mas as another sign that the company is not moving forward in good faith towards more sustainable palm oil production.

Problems with the Sinar Mas “audit” that merit immediate action:

• Although the official complaint against Sinar Mas  filed at the RSPO put into question the company’s violations of RSPO principles and criteria, this audit is an initiative of PT SMART and is too limited in scope to provide an accurate assessment of the Sinar Mas Group
• Further, this “audit” only looks at three PT SMART concessions covering 40% of its plantations area; it does not assess the rest of PT SMART’s concessions including those in Papua or the larger holdings of Golden Agri Resources (GAR), and is therefore not comprehensive enough to provide an adequate   assessment of its palm oil plantation practices
• The audit shows that PT Smart has destroyed carbon rich peatlands and cleared rainforests for conversion to palm oil plantations
• The audit  is not based on RSPO Principles and Criteria nor Sinar Mas’ adherence to them

In sum, the “Independent Verification Report” that PT Smart paid for and just released is being used by Sinar Mas as a smokescreen to distract attention from what we know to be the many real negative impacts on the ground from their operations on the Islands of Sumatra, Borneo and upcoming threats in New Guinea.  This strongly reinforces the widely held view that U.S. based companies like Cargill cannot rely on Sinar Mas’ misleading claims of sustainability and should reject them.

We are aware that Cargill is “reviewing the results and discussing them with PT SMART in the next few days to decide how [you] wish to proceed.” We urge you to make a formal response to our concerns and to take proactive action now and cancel all direct and indirect contracts with Sinar Mas.

Sincerely,

Bill Barclay

Corporate Communications & Interim Program Director
Rainforest Action Network

Threatened Peat Swamp Forest. Photo: Leonard Freitas.

So what does this mean for U.S. companies that have palm oil in their supply chain? Well, for starters, it serves as strong proof that palm oil is an increasingly controversial and risky commodity due to its negative impacts on tropical rainforests, the climate, critical habitat for endangered species, as well as diverse communities of people that rely on healthy forests for their livelihoods.

Market leader companies like Unilever, Nestle and Kraft have already distanced themselves from Sinar Mas to disassociate their brand from rainforest destruction, and all but Kraft have adopted strong policies to ensure they are not a part of the problem but rather part of the solution. Will General Mills and Cargill follow suit? It’s time that all U.S. companies get out of this problem and embark upon the pathway to change.

See video of the delivery for yourself:

As the largest privately owned corporation in the country and second largest in the world, the top 20 executives who work in this Cargill mansion are intentionally far removed and very protected from the ways in which their company’s operations around the world impact rainforests and the species & peoples depending on them for survival.  And this is specifically why we decided to bring the sound of Cargill’s rainforest destruction right to the offices of these top executives – so they can’t continue to hide from the truth.

Do you think Cargill CEO Greg Page, who makes double digit millions of dollars a year (General Mills CEO Ken Powell made $13.4 million in 2008 so we can only guess how much the privately owned agribusiness monster CEO makes), knows that species like orangutans, Sumatran tigers and elephants are on the brink of extinction, and direly need Cargill to adopt a palm oil policy before they are all extinct?

RAN Activists Lock Down At Cargill: Photo By D. Gilbert

To give these corporate executives the benefit of the doubt, we’re guessing probably not. Which is why we locked down inside of their Lake Office – to bring the chainsaws and the sound of orangutan extinction to their CEO’s office, begging that they wake up and adopt a responsible palm oil policy now! We demanded a meeting with CEO Greg Page and did not fall for Mark Murphy’s attempt to get us to unlock to engage in more “constructive dialogue,” which for 2.5 years has proven unsuccessful in getting real protection for tropical forests in South East Asia.

Breaking major media headlines across the country, threatening the company’s reputation and re-branding Cargill as a company that specializes in rainforest destruction, our action made a huge splash. But we need your help to continue pressuring both Cargill and their customers – such as General Mills, who have the power to get Cargill to change – until they adopt a socially and environmentally responsible palm oil policy! Because the clock is ticking for Indonesia’s rainforests…we don’t have much time to wait.

On Wednesday April 28 several children descended upon General Mills Headquarters in Golden Valley, MN, to deliver the over 400 Earth Day posters that young school children produced nation-wide, asking General Mills to get the dead orangutans out of their breakfast cereal. They just don’t understand why General Mills insists on putting rainforest destruction-tainted palm oil in over 100 of their products including brands such as Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, and Hamburger Helper.

Elementary school student Amina in Dexter, MI expresses her concerns about General Mills

This came just days after General Mills released its 2010 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report, which clearly showed that the company is not making the issue of palm oil a priority as it appeared in a brief paragraph on page 97 out of 102. The children delivering the posters asked General Mills to show a true commitment to sustainability, not just one that looks good on paper.

The following day, on Thursday April 29, the New York Action Network used creative tactics to disrupt two different sessions of the annual Edison Awards, a prestigious award that honors companies for their innovation.  As a finalist for their Betty Crocker Gluten Free cake mix, activists made sure to be there at both the leadership panel at the NY Academy of Sciences and at the evening ceremony in the event that the company earned an award so as to shed some light on the company’s negligent practices: continuing to purchase palm oil from Cargill even though we’ve proven that Cargill is clearing and burning threatened rainforests in South East Asia, making irreplaceable species like Sumatran tigers and elephants extinct, and displacing millions of Indigenous communities.

I encourage you to hear the story from the brave New York activists themselves and check out their photos.

The pressure isn’t only mounting nationally – locally we’re making a big splash too. Last night over 150 people attended the RAN-sponsored art and activist event at Tarnish & Gold Gallery in NE Minneapolis. Artists were asked to use local food corporations with shoddy human-rights and sustainability track records for inspiration, and the gallery walls were covered in images like the Pillsbury Doughboy walking among flaming forests, and General Mills logos on destroyed land. Winning artists received amazing awards from local businesses!

"Rainforest Doughstruction" from palm oil in General Mills' Pillsbury products!

But we’re not stopping there! Today is the infamous May Day parade here in Minneapolis, where we will march amongst thousands with a 6 ft. orangutan, Cargill chainsaws and oil palm trees to educate the public about the impact that local food and agriculture giants General Mills and Cargill are having on peoples, forests and species around the globe.

Join our movement to demand responsible palm oil today!

Check out some of the best photos from the Palm Oil Week of Action!

Here are some hi-lights from the field:

Willow in Minneapolis, Minnesota:  Dressed in our Sunday’s best, a group of faith-based leaders and community members took a stand against our home town neighbors General Mills and their palm oil supplier, the Cargill family and corporation, in front of a local Minneapolis grocery store on Easter.  We took photos petitions of grocery shoppers holding messages to General Mills, including Minnesota State Senator Linda Berglin!

Michelle in Melbourne, Florida: At my son’s 5th birthday party we had a pinata. We gave each kid at the party a beach bucket to collect the prizes. Inside each bucket we taped the Lucky Charms RAN information card. We felt this was a great way to get the information out to dozens of families.

Kids learn at 5th Birthday party that General Mills kills orangutans to make Cheerios!

Kati in San Francisco, California: I thought making fun Orangutan masks would be a good way to get people to pose for photo petitions and make people curious about what was going on! I took a photo of an Orangutan getting back at General Mills cereal and educated people in front of the store.

Naomi in Houston, Texas: My high school environmental studies club had so much fun during the first palm oil week of action that for the next one we hit the grocery store front and made a splash with photo petitions!

Lamar High School students generate petitions to General Mills

Michelle in Olmstead Township, Ohio: I placed RAN’s Lucky Charms “Magically Destructive” educational postcards next to all the cereal boxes in the cereal isles as a different approach to raising awareness.

Carol in Trinidad, California: I took all the materials to Arcata’s Plan It Green on Saturday and handed them out at our “Locally-Delicious” table. Many, many young parents chatted and took materials.

Michelle in San Antonio, Texas: I went to my local Target parking lot and handed out flyers, talking to a great many people as they were crowded for the holidays.  As usual most people were not aware that General Mills is serving dead orangutans and forests to children around the world. I was very well received by shoppers!

Julia in Canmore, Alberta, Canada: I stood out front of several grocery stores and passed out the Cheerios postcards hi-lighting that each spoonful contains rainforest destruction, as well as put them up on community boards across town.

Erik in Minneapolis, Minnesota: Dressed as a concerned orangutan homeless due to General Mills’ cereal operations, I meandered around a Lunds grocery store parking lot, speaking with consumers about the devastating impacts that palm oil expansion have on my home. Shoppers were happy to see an orangutan visit them in their city, but were sad and troubled to hear that products in their grocery store were causing global warming, species extinction, and exploitation of native forest peoples. They joined in asking General Mills to switch to responsible and sustainable palm oil!

Homeless orangutan, thanks to General Mills, at Lunds in Mnpls

Joan Barrera in Albuquerque, New Mexico: We educated hundreds of cereal-loving students on the campus of the University of New Mexico where our reception provoked a lot of interest!

Ruby in Reno, Nevada: With help from a friend, I passed out postcards at Savemart and Raley’s. We talked to the manager of Savemart and gave him some info. He said he was interested in doing something about it and was glad that we talked to him.

April in San Marcos, California: My son Robert and I set up a table in front of the Ralphs store to help bring awareness to the community about General Mills. We had the petitions out on the table for custermers to sign. Our goal was to let people know that big corporations like General Mills need to change and stop making us responsible for their rainforest destruction by continuing this practice of buying from the agribusiness Cargill.

Cereal-loving children begging General Mills to stop killing orangutans!

So…what’s next?

Hundreds of children across the U.S. participated in an Earth Day poster contest, creating masterful pieces of art telling General Mills that although they love cereal, they’re not willing to sacrifice the rainforest and all its species in order to eat it!

Here is an example of a submission from a 1st grader in New Jersey:

“To General Mills:

Please stop cutting forests for your profits. There is always another way. Do your employee’s kids know about it? If no, what do you tell them? You know what you are destroying. Please make a turn in right direction we are never late.  On one side we tell our kids to plant trees and on other side you are destroying nature. You are the one responsible for climate change. You still have a chance before it’s too late.

From Diya Patel, Grade 1. Ventnor, New Jersey”

But what do endangered orangutans or Sumatran tigers have to do with General Mills, anyway?

This year’s FUSE Conference brought over 400 industry leaders together for 3 days of “Reclaiming the Future.” Conveniently, many of Cargill’s palm oil customers such as General Mills, Kraft and Hershey’s, were in attendance.

Over 400 industry leaders awoke this morning to find colorful educational postcards under their door, reading “General Mills: Rainforest Destruction Guaranteed,” “Lucky Charms is Magically Destructive” and “Cheerios: Rainforest Destruction in every spoonful.”

If the industry leaders didn’t understand after reading our materials over breafast how General Mills is displacing Indigenous peoples, exacerbating climate change and threatening rainforest species like the orangutan by using palm oil products in their cereal, they definitely did once they got to the conference’s first session of the day.

At 10am as General Mills finished up it’s panel on design and marketing, several activists, dressed in suits, joined General Mills, Kraft and other Cargill palm oil customer staff for a networking break.  Introducing themselves as Cargill interns wishing to share new corporate materials, the activists were greeted with warm handshakes and friendly smiles.  “Cargill interns” handed out the new corporate materials, which were pamphlets hi-lighting Cargill’s role in rainforest destruction, gross human rights abuses, and species extinction.

After enough jaws had dropped and after making sure every speaker podium in the Conference had a Cargill postcard, the palm oil activists called it a day.

Concerned Cheerios Lovers Beg General Mills to Stop Killing Orangutans

General Mills, you don’t have to be a Fossil Fool! Take Action Now!

Deforestation accounts for 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions.  Massive tracks of tropical forests are getting cleared and burned every hour in South East Asia to make way for mono-crop palm oil plantations which exacerbate climate change and wipe out critical habitat for endangered species like Sumatran Orangutans, Elephants and Tigers.

General Mills, one of America’s most trusted food brands, adds palm oil and its derivatives to almost 200 of its products and brands including Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, & Bisquick.

Employee Worries About Safeway's Reputation Selling General Mills Products

Protesters passed out several hundred spoof Lucky Charms “Magically Destructive” and Cheerios “Rainforest Destruction in Every Spoonful” postcards to grocery store shoppers.  We generated over a hundred petition signatures to General Mills CEO Ken Powell and half as many photo petitions demanding that the food giant stop stalling and take action to ensure that its palm oil supply chain is free of rainforest destruction because the climate can’t wait!

Volunteer Warns Shoppers about General Mills!

Unfortunately for General Mills, over three hundred concerned cereal eaters across the U.S. and Canada took to the streets last week for a National Palm Oil Week of Action and distributed 20,000 spoof Cheerios postcards.

Concerned citizens are raising awareness about General Mills’ role in rainforest destruction from California to Minnesota to Alberta, Canada: General Mills is definitely on the spot.

In the world of Corporate Social Responsibility, the past two weeks have been an exciting time for companies like General Mills, receiving awards such as ‘Top Corporate Citizen,’ ranking 47^th in the world’s  50 ‘Most Admired Companies’ and 29^th on the ‘Diversity List.’ These awards recognize the company’s strong global reputation – at least according to Fortune Magazine and global business leaders.

But what this small group of decision makers doesn’t know is that millions of Indigenous peoples, endangered species and forests are at risk from palm oil expansion in Indonesia – thanks to General Mills.

General Mills, a company recognized for its CSR record, refuses to have a conversation with RAN about their palm oil commitments because of our “antics.”  It makes us wonder if General Mills is really committed to “sustainability.”

“General Mills strives to be one of the most socially responsible consumer food companies in the world, and we’re proud to be named one of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2010,” said Ken Powell, chairman and CEO of General Mills. “Each step we take across our businesses, big or small, advances our mission of Nourishing Lives.”

Which lives, exactly, is he nourishing? The lives of the children in the U.S. eating rainforest destruction-tainted Cheerios? Or the lives of the millions of forest-dependent people forced off their land to make way for monoculture palm oil plantations that release vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and destroy the precious habitat of endangered species, like orangutans and Sumatran tigers?

Will General Mills continue claiming that they support responsible palm oil while purchasing it from one of the worst palm oil supplier in the world – Cargill? RAN won’t quit campaigning until General Mills starts truly honoring their commitment to “Corporate Social Responsibility” by sourcing only environmentally and socially responsible palm oil. Until then, these awards mean nothing.

Over six hundred people and counting have already signed up for another national week of action for the first week of April! We will be passing out thousands of spoof Lucky Charms postcards as one of the many General Mills brands that contain palm oil ingredients.

Due to our combined efforts, more than 45 American companies have committed to using only environmentally and socially responsible palm oil.  Guess who’s not quite ready to make that same commitment? General Mills. Turns out Lucky Charms aren’t so lucky for the local people, culture and biodiversity of Indonesia’s lush tropical islands.

When General Mills steps up and cancels their contract with Cargill, their performance will merit an award they are actually deserving of. Until then, anyone who uses the word ‘responsible’ in the same sentence as General Mills is misguided and misinformed.