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Unilever produces many of Britain’s best-known household brands has been exposed as contributing to the destruction of rainforests by buying thousands of tonnes of illegal palm oil. Unilever, which uses palm oil in its Flora and Stork margarines, Dove toiletries and Persil washing powder among many other products, will today announce that it is cutting links with Sinar Mas, Indonesia’s largest palm oil company. Unilever is acting after being shown photographic evidence of Sinar Mas clearing rainforest in protected areas, including reserves for the country’s endangered orang-utan population. The Anglo-Dutch company, which claims to be a leader in protecting rainforests and chairs the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), was informed almost two years ago about Sinar Mas’s illegal activities. It cancelled the £20 million annual contract in the past few days after learning that Greenpeace was about to publish a dossier of evidence. The RSPO, which also includes Sinar Mas, is a self-regulation body that aims to prevent illegal forest clearance. Environmental groups have criticised it as toothless and an obstacle to independent scrutiny. |
The growth of the palm oil industry in Indonesia has turned the country into the third-largest emitter of CO2, after China and the US. Indonesia has the fastest rate of deforestation, losing an area the size of Wales every year.
Deforestation contributes 15-20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and is one of the key issues being debated at the Copenhagen climate change summit.
Sinar Mas is one of dozens of palm oil companies likely to exploit loopholes in proposed new UN rules on protecting forests. Under the draft text of the rules, known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (Redd), palm oil plantations created by clearing rainforests would qualify for payments from a new fund under which rich countries would pay developing countries for storing carbon in trees.
Gavin Neath, Unilever’s vice-president for communications, said: “We have received very serious allegations against Sinar Mas and we had no choice but to suspend future purchases from them.” He said that the company had not acted before because it thought it better to work with Sinar Mas to improve its practices. He admitted that this approach had failed.
Unilever is the world’s biggest consumer of palm oil and has pledged to buy only from certified sustainable plantations from 2015. This year, 85 per cent of its palm oil was uncertified.
Simon Lewis, research fellow on tropical forests at Leeds University, said: “We shouldn’t have the companies buying the palm oil being the policemen. We need a strong Redd agreement with independent monitoring and no loopholes for new plantations.”
TimesOnline
The ad, which Sir Roger has paid for, is run by campaign group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) and appeals to retailers to stop sales of the pate which is made using cruel methods to fatten goose livers. The poster has been placed directly outside Selfridges' Food Hall and shows him holding a protest sign, featuring the line: ''Force-Feeding Birds Is Cruel, Not Yule''.
An earlier plan to show the force-feeding of the birds had been rejected for fears it would be offensive'.
Sir Roger said: ''As foie gras production is too violent to show on an ad, surely this 'torture in a tin' is too violently produced for Selfridges to sell.''
Peta says foie gras production involves large amounts of food being pumped directly into the stomachs of ducks and geese by a pipe, causing the birds' livers to expand to up to ten times their normal size.
Sir Roger Moore has said he will not shop at Selfridges as long as it sells foie gras.
A spokesman for Selfridges did not wish to comment on Sir Roger's poster campaign.
Mygreenlifestyle firmly supports any campaign that will eradicate this inhumane practise.
Yvonne Ainsworth
A tiny insect could be an effective and environment-friendly weapon against a damaging and costly invasive non-native plant - Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica), scientists have said.
Japanese knotweed can grow more than a metre a month and is famed for pushing through tarmac, concrete and drains. Its effect on native species is often devastating as it out-competes indigenous species covering large tracts of land to the exclusion of the native flora and associated fauna.
The government is considering an application for a licence to release the psyllid to attack the plant to reduce its vigour, thus reducing the use of chemicals and the costs of control including weedkillers and physical removal.
The cost of eradication nationally using conventional methods was estimated at £1.56 billion in 2003.
Japanese Knotweed has spread across Britain since being introduced as an ornamental plant in the early nineteenth century and costs the country millions of pounds in repairs to buildings, roads and railway lines.
It is expected that the psyllid would be released and monitored at a small number of sites initially, followed by wider release in England and Wales.
Five-years’ research by scientists at CABI has shown that Aphalara itadori is the best candidate to help control Japanese knotweed in Britain. The findings suggest that only a few closely-related non-native knotweeds are potential hosts in Britain.
To find out more go to www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/japanese-knotweed/index.htm
For the first time since the Second World War, Buckingham Palace will grow beans, lettuce and tomatoes from seeds donated by Garden Organic on a new allotment plot in its gardens. Garden Organic's Chief Executive, Myles Bremner, said,
“We are thrilled that the Palace not only has its own allotment, but that it is also brimming with vegetables grown from rare seeds donated by Garden Organic.”
“The fact that this is the first time that food has been grown at the Palace since the Second World War will undoubtedly bring about the 'dig for victory' analogies, but those challenges for self sufficiency and a need to re-skill a generation in how to feed itself resonate even now. What is important is to put people back in touch with food and how to grow, and hopefully the Palace allotment will be a driver for getting more people to achieve this.”
The Palace has been donated seeds of six endangered, historic vegetables from Garden Organic's Heritage Seed Library - a collection of over 800 rare vegetable varieties – including, tomato White Queen, Queen of Hearts and Golden Queen, lettuce Northern Queen, climbing French bean Blue Queen and dwarf French bean Royal Red, all of which will appear on the allotment.
A palace spokeswoman said the Queen is a green gardener. She said: "No chemicals have been used to cultivate the allotment sites. Liquid seaweed has been used to feed the plants and garlic is being used to deter aphids. Like the rest of the garden, water from the palace borehole is used to irrigate the plants”.
Researchers at the University of Warwick have created the world's first Formula 3 green racing car to be designed and made from sustainable and renewable materials.
The car is powered by waste chocolate and vegetable oil, and the car’s steering wheel is made from carrot fibres. There are other eco-friendly bits to the car as well, from plant-oil engine lubricants to a seat made of flax fibre and soybean oil. After months of research the team says the car is finally ready to drive.
“The project clearly demonstrates that automotive environmentalism can and should be about the whole package,” said Dr. Steve Maggs, part of the Warwick team.
Sadly the minor-league open-wheel racing circuit doesn’t allow biofuel engines, yet. Even if it won’t hit the circuit, the car is the latest illustration of the environmental tensions gripping auto racing. Nascar teams have started buying carbon offsets. Formula One teams, in addition to offsets, have started using more biofuels and tinkering with new technology to get around the inconvenient truth that there’s nothing too environmentally-friendly about racing
Cadbury and the Fairtrade Foundation today announced plans to achieve Fairtrade certification for Cadbury Dairy Milk, the nation’s top selling chocolate bar, by end of summer 2009. This groundbreaking move will result in the tripling of sales of cocoa under Fairtrade terms for cocoa farmers in Ghana, both increasing Fairtrade cocoa sales for existing certified farming groups, as well as opening up new opportunities for thousands more farmers to benefit from the Fairtrade system. Cadbury is to become the first mass-market chocolate brand to adopt the Fairtrade certification mark, signalling the rising importance of ethical credentials to big business even as consumers become choosier in how they spend their money.The confectionery group will certify 300m of its Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bars as well as its packaged cocoa, at a cost of £1.5m ($2.1m), by the end of summer. The company raised prices last year, partly to absorb the cost of the move to Fairtrade. Harriet Lamb, the chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation, said Cadbury's move, which represents £200m in retail sales, would "throw down the gauntlet" to other big chocolate manufacturers. "It's an iconic British brand ... This does really set the pace for the mainstream industry."Peter Melchett, policy director for the Soil Association said the move showed the recession was not causing consumers to abandon ethical concerns. "It's surprising how continually committed people are."