By Duane D. Stanford
Deforestation due to palm oil particularly has caused loss of habitats and wiidlife. Picture courtesy of Rio Helmi.
Atlanta, 15 February 2014. Kellogg Co. (K) has agreed to buy palm oil only from suppliers who can prove they don’t damage rain forests, the strongest move yet by a public food manufacturer to stop the practice, according an environmental group that pressured the maker of Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies.
Starting in 2016, palm oil - a vegetable oil used to cook Pop-Tarts to Pringles - will be sourced through supply chains that are deemed “environmentally appropriate,” states a new policy posted on the Battle Creek, Michigan-based company’s website. Suppliers must trace the oil to plantations that are independently verified as legally compliant, Kellogg’s Chief Sustainability Officer Diane Holdorf said in an e-mail.
“Kellogg’s aggressive timeline for eliminating deforestation from its supply chain raises the bar for the entire industry and represents a tipping point in developing a responsible palm oil supply chain,” Lucia von Reusner, an activist for Boston-based Green Century Capital Management Inc., which filed a shareholder proposal asking for policy changes, said in an interview.
Read about how Kellogg is influencing Wilmar, world's largest palm oil trader, to become more responsible from the rest of this Bloomberg's post.