Corporate Social Responsibility

Global interconnectedness and the significance of climate change have increased the need for corporations to be transparent and socially, environmentally responsible:  

General Mills's global responsibility:
 ''we are committed to combating climate change 
by working towards sustainable emissions levels 
by 2050 and reducing GHG emissions by 28% by 2025'' 

 Nestlé has ''further strengthened'' its environmental commitments 

How transparent are corporations' motivations? And, more importantly, how sustainable can major corporations be? Can ''fair trade'', ''organic'', ''sustainable'' labels be deceptive? 

Nestlé promised to end deforestation in its supply chain after its responsibility in deforestation was exposed. I highly recommend taking a look at Greenpeace's  'How Palm Oil is Still Cooking the Climate' (the 'still' was added ten years after the original report in 2007).

Remember this? 

In 2010, Nestlé was Caught Red Handed (in its contribution to the deforestation for Palm Oil) and Greenpeace launched a massive campaign against KitKat (owned by Nestlé)

The bountiful rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia have helped address the world's thirst for palm oil, currently supplying about 85% of demands and they are not about to have a break. 

Just like corn and other cash crops, palm oil's value comes from its versatility. It is found in half of packaged products sold in supermarkets (and non-food products like biofuel). Significant pledges were made in light of COP21 to cut forest loss by half by 2020. By 2014, governments and corporations adopted 'no deforestation, no peat, no exploitation' (NDPE) policies: 

''Consumers have sent companies a clear signal that they do not want their purchasing habits to drive deforestation and companies are responding'' (Paul Polmann, Chief executive officer of Unilever, 2014). 

The reality is that the industry will continue flourishing (expected to produce 128 million tons by 2022) while forests continue being cleared (see, for example, A Deadly Trade Off). Executive chairman of Malaysia's IOI Group (one of the world's leading palm oil players) is very optimistic, expressing the company's vision to ''widen the geographical spread of palm oil products in the world and push the boundaries where palm oil can be applied and used''. If it produces four tonnes of crude palm oil (CPO) per hectare a year, IOI aims to double it. Indonesia's Minister for Economic Affairs is even more straightforward: “we will not let go of even one tonne of trade contract or potential demand palm has globally”. The country has made plans to convert around 18 million hectares of rainforests into plantations by 2020. 

Companies like Nestlé are shielded from the stains of deforestation with logos that certify their sustainable sourcing. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) does just that. 

What is 'sustainable'? Source

Making sure the sourcing of companies (and the legitimacy of logos and certificates) is truly sustainable requires tracing the activities back to the plantation levels. The Guardian published an article recently, titled Nestlé, Hersheys and Mars breaking promises over palm oil use. These food brands have reportedly been sourcing their palm oil from the vanishing Sumatran rainforest, where complex supply chains sometimes involve traders linked to illegal logging. 

Update: a new study has determined that the loss of primary forest habitats (from deforestation linked mainly to palm oil exploration) has led ''to an equivocal or higher threat of extinction'' of the Sumatran tiger. Tiger densities were reportedly 31.9% lower in disturbed areas, and, considering that 80% of the Sumatra's remaining hill, lowland and peat forest is already disturbed, forest conservation will determine the fate of Sumatran tigers and other species at the brink of extinction (Luskin et al., 2017).

Governments and corporations are responsible for large-scale land-cover changes and land-use dynamics. Traders should be held accountable for new plantation expansions across their supply chains. On the other hand, the regulators - governments - seem to be shying away from their commitments. 

What do you think?