Soft soap saves forests

Body Shop leads switch to sustainable palm oil

Palm oil has been in the dock of late, as concerns intensify about the loss of crucial forest resources to dramatically expanding palm plantations in Southeast Asia – and the climate implications of the clearance work involved.

The really big worries surround its use for biodiesel. But now, in a move designed to shake up the cosmetic industry, The Body Shop has committed to source all its palm oil from sustainable sources. CEO Peter Saunders called on other cosmetic companies to follow suit. He expressed the company’s hope that unsustainable palm oil would be eradicated within three years.

“Many people who use soap everyday will be unaware that they are contributing to a major environmental catastrophe,” he said.

The company will now source all its palm oil from an organic plantation in Colombia. The Daabon plantation has met the approval of more than a dozen global certifiers, including the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation and the Rainforest Alliance. The Body Shop also conducted its own audit of the 2,500-hectare plantation, based on principles developed by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a multi-stakeholder initiative launched in 2003.

The Body Shop, now owned by French cosmetics giant L’Oréal, hopes the criteria will provide the basis for a global certification scheme for sustainable palm oil, to be launched later this year. Other RSPO members, including Boots and the rest of L’Oréal, are poised to follow its lead once the scheme takes effect.

Matthias Diemer, palm oil expert with WWF Switzerland, praised the company’s pioneering role: “This is the start of the growth of sustainable palm oil in the cosmetics sector and we hope that many more companies will follow suit.” – Oliver Balch and Martin Wright

20 September 2007

Martin Wright and Oliver Balch

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