GREENPEACE STATEMENT – Nestlé, maker of Kit Kat, uses palm oil from companies that are trashing Indonesian rainforests, threatening the livelihoods of local people and pushing orang-utans towards extinction.

We all deserve to have a break – but having one shouldn’t involve taking a bite out of Indonesia’s precious rainforests. We’re asking Nestlé to give rainforests and orang-utans a break and stop buying palm oil from destroyed forests.

Have a break? from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo.

Nestlé is using palm oil from destroyed Indonesian rainforests and peatlands, in products like KitKat, pushing already endangered orangutans to the brink of extinction and accelerating climate change, a new Greenpeace report reveals.(1) In Canada, Nestle products made with palm include: KitKat, Rolo, Coffee Crisp, Turtles, Butterfinger, Drumsticks, Crunch ice cream, most baby cereals and all infant formulas.(7)

A damning new Greenpeace report, Caught Red-Handed, exposes how Nestlé is sourcing palm oil from suppliers, including Sinar Mas, Indonesias largest producer of palm oil, which continue to expand into the rainforest and carbon-rich peatlands, as well as into critical orangutan habitat. Sinar Mas also owns Asia Pulp and Paper, Indonesias largest pulp and paper company, notorious for its role in rainforest destruction.

This morning, protests are taking place across Europe as around 100 Greenpeace activists, some dressed as orangutans, went to Nestlés headquarters and factories in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. They called on Nestlé staff to urge the company to stop using palm oil thats the result of forest destruction.(2)

Nestlé, the worlds leading food and drinks company, is a major consumer of palm oil. In the last three years, its annual use has almost doubled, with 320,000 tonnes of palm oil going into a range of products, including KitKat.(3)

Every time you take a bite out of a KitKat, you may be taking a bite out of Indonesias rainforests, which are critical for the orangutans survival, said Stephanie Goodwin, forest campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. Nestle needs to give the orangutan a break and stop using palm oil from suppliers that are destroying the rainforests.

The reports launch follows numerous attempts to persuade Nestlé to cancel its contracts with Sinar Mas. Most recently, in December, Greenpeace wrote to Nestlé with evidence that Sinar Mas is breaking Indonesian law and ignoring its commitments as a member of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the industry body that claims to be making the palm oil industry more sustainable. But evidence shows Sinar Mass forest destruction continues.(4)

In the face of its unacceptable environmental practices, several major companies, including Unilever and Kraft, have cancelled their palm oil contracts with the company.(5)

Other big companies are taking action, but Nestle continues to turn a blind eye to the worst offenders which supply them, said Goodwin. Its time for Nestle to cancel its Sinar Mas contracts and stop being complicit in rainforest and peatland destruction.

Indonesia has one of the fastest rates of forest destruction on the planet, with palm oil plantations being a major cause. As a result, it is now the worlds third largest greenhouse gas emitter, after China and the US.(6)

NOTES TO EDITORS:

(1) Caught Red-Handed: How Nestlés Use of Palm Oil is Having a Devastating Impact on Rainforest, The Climate and Orang-utans athttp://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/caught-red-handed-how-nestle

NOTE: Globally, KitKat is one of the best-known Nestlé products containing palm oil. In the United States, KitKat is licensed to Hershey Foods Corporation through an original agreement executed with Rowntree Products in 1969. In 1988, Nestlé purchased Rowntree and markets KitKat products worldwide outside of the United States. The Greenpeace report does not examine Hershey Foods Corporations palm oil sourcing.

(2) Protests are being held at Nestlé headquarters in London (Croydon), Amsterdam and Frankfurt, and at seven Nestlé factories across Germany.

(3) In communication with Nestlé October 2007, it admitted to using 170,000 tonnes of palm based oil. By February 2010, it said its use had risen to 320,000 tonnes. See Nestlé response to BBC Panorama questionnaire sent to major food manufactures in the UK, in connection to its programme Dying for a biscuit, 22 February 2010:http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/panorama_nestle.pdf.

(4) Illegal forest clearance and RSPO greenwash: Case study of Sinar Mas athttp://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/forests/sinarmasRSPOgreenwash.pdf and photographic evidence of Sinar Mas subsidiary PT. Agro Lestari Mandiri clearing forest in Ketapang, West Kalimantan, 9 March 2010.

(5) Unilever cancelled its $30 million (21 million euros) annual contract in 2009, seehttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6952288.ece Kraft announced the cancellation of its contract with Sinar Mas in a letter to Greenpeace, 16 February 2010. Both moves followed Greenpeace evidence of Sinar Mass environmental destruction.

(6) FAO 2005. Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) 2005.http://www.fao.org/forestry/site/fra2005/en/; on palm oil:www.unep.org/grasp/docs/2007Jan-LastStand-of-Orangutan-report.pdf; and on climate: WRI 2008. Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT) Version 6.0 (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute) http://cait.wri.org/

(7) Nestle products sold in Canada that contain or may contain palm oil:http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/campaigns/boreal/kit-kat/product_llist

Source

Other Stories on Palm Oil destruction

All day everyday rainforests are being cleared for palm oil

Does your breakfast cause rainforest destruction?

When You Look at the World

Want a weekly update of all the greatest posts on the web? Subscribe for the weekly VOICE FOR CHANGE Newsletter and never miss a story! CLICK Bob Williamson and in the subject line type SUBSCRIBE