For the ethical shopper, hunting for chocolate Easter eggs has always been a challenge. But thanks to new labelling laws and a dramatic sea change in manufacturers’ attitudes, palm oil may be one area where life is now much easier for anyone after conscientious confectionery.
From 13 December last year, new EU laws made it mandatory for palm oil to be declared on product labelling and not hidden as generic vegetable oils, meaning those keen to avoid it no longer need to play detective. But with certified palm oil now the norm in the majority of UK chocolate, that wariness may no longer be warranted.
The environmental groups that once spearheaded campaigns against the industry are now encouraging people not to boycott palm oil. “We knew a boycott wasn’t the right solution,” says Adam Harrison, senior policy officer for food and agriculture at WWF. “The trick is to cut the link between palm oil and the unacceptable impacts rather that cut it out.”
Those unacceptable impacts are legion. In Indonesia and Malaysia, where 90% of the world’s certified palm oil is produced, an estimated 7m acres of rainforest and peatlands have been cleared and drained, destroying habitats for wildlife and indigenous people. Then there are the related issues of pollution and worker safety involved in the farming itself. Despite this, demand for the versatile vegetable oil is expected to double by 2020.
Those advocating alternatives should think carefully. Per hectare, palm’s yields are more than four times that of rapeseed, but require a tenth of the fertiliser and pesticides needed for soya. “That’s why we helped set up the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2004,” says Harrison, who is also RSPO’s vice-president. “It has standards on all those unacceptable impacts and addresses them as a package rather than individually.”
Among the producers, manufacturers and NGOs that make up RSPO’s 1,700-strong membership are the big four global confectioners: Nestle, Mars, Ferrero and Mondelez International, which owns Cadbury. All have made efforts not only to source certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO), but also to work with suppliers to ensure traceability back to the mills and the smallholder farmers they buy from. At the end of last year, Ferrero shifted its supply chain to 100% segregated sustainable palm oil across its products.
Most UK supermarkets with own brand chocolate and other popular chocolate brands are also signed up to RSPO, and companies such as Lindt & Sprungli – which came bottom of a table for sustainable palm oil usage in a survey of Easter eggs by Ethical Consumer only two years ago – have now transformed this area of their business.
“Our minimum sourcing standard is RSPO-certified palm oil,” says Sylvia Kälin, head of corporate communications for Lindt & Sprungli. “By the end of 2015 we will be shifting the whole production chain to CSPO segregated palm oil. [It’s] already been initiated and implemented stepwise in several of our production sites and for several products.”
Does certification work?
But some critics say RSPO’s standards don’t go far enough. “RSPO certification isn’t at present a guarantee that the palm oil used in Easter eggs is deforestation free,” says Pat Venditti, forests campaigner for Greenpeace International, which has set up its own palm oil innovation group with some progressive oil producers to ensure that secondary forests are also protected, not just those RSPO recognises as primary or of high conservation value. “Companies using palm oil to produce chocolate or other consumer goods need to go beyond RSPO standards to ensure their products are rainforest friendly.”
Others point to RSPO’s failure to regulate against the continued drainage of delicate peatlands. “The expansion of plantations into peatland is one of the leading causes of greenhouse gas emissions in Indonesia,” says Tom Johnson, Forest Campaigner at the Environmental Investigation Agency. “The members of the RSPO voted to block a ban on expansion into peatlands in 2013, which tells you loud and clear that they’re more interested in protecting their profit margins than they are in mitigating climate change, or committing to any meaningful sense of sustainability.”
RSPO’s European director of outreach and communication, Danielle Morley, admits that there are areas of weakness. Some RSPO members are still too reliant on minimum measures of just purchasing CSPO on the markets, rather than tackling their entire supply chain, “which would ultimately transform the whole industry,” she says. “And small companies, like speciality ingredient manufacturers, are maybe still unable to source the derivative that they need sustainably.”
After recently cancelling 15 memberships and suspending 61 others – including a number of well-known bakeries in the UK and Europe - for failing to submit annual reports for up to three consecutive years, RSPO knows it has to police its members firmly if it wants to remain credible.
“WWF wants to see RSPO get much tougher, not just on reporting but whether members are meeting the targets they’re setting themselves, that they’re meaningful, and they’re taking serious action and not just greenwashing,” says Harrison. He also wants standards to move with the times and become more ambitious, such as adopting measures to encourage palm growers on high-carbon emitting drained peat to leave the land and return it to its natural state.
Consumer backlash
The irony is that, having worked so concertedly to get RSPO certification, many chocolate manufacturers are choosing not to advertise the logo on their products. “You don’t see it as much as we’d have hoped,” says Harrison. “A lot of people who are using palm oil in food have some sensitivities around it because of health issues. We’ve tended to see more use of the label on soaps, detergents and household goods.”
While many chocolatiers, including Lindt, argue that any presence of vegetable oils in chocolate apart from cocoa mass would be a mark of inferior quality, palm oil is still an essential ingredient for creating soft centres, toffees and nougat. And despite allowing Nestle to reduce the saturated fat of KitKats by 10% in 2013 by using palm oil to replace trans fatty acids, the ingredient has a 50% saturated fat content that makes it a target for vociferous health campaigners, particularly in Scandinavia.
“People are becoming much more alert to sustainability and health issues around the ingredients in the foods they are regularly buying, and palm oil is one of those ingredients that raises questions about both,” says Charlotte Borger of Divine Chocolate. “We are finding that a growing number of our customers are either enquiring or requesting that our products are palm oil free.”
While some believe palm oil’s environmental credentials are being redeemed through the work of the RSPO, it appears that for some chocolate brands the ingredient raises too many other questions in the minds of the consumer about quality and health that are better side-stepped rather than promoting the more complicated message of sustainable use. In the public’s eyes at least, it seems the idea of an ethical chocolate Easter egg containing palm oil has yet to be totally cracked.
The palm oil debate is funded by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here.
Join the community of sustainability professionals and experts. Become a GSB member to get more stories like this direct to your inbox.
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion