Marks and Spencer has made its involvement in the GreenPalm programme and its commitment to source 100% sustainable palm oil by 2015 a key plank in its Plan A sustainability platform. The GreenPalm programme has attracted criticism from some activists, but Mike Barry, head of sustainable business at M&S, believes it is an important step in the right direction. In this month’s Sustainability Watch, he explains why.
Having a strong sustainability strategy is one thing but once a company begins to flag up environmental commitments with reputational ads, the stakes are raised considerably. Once it draws attention to an undertaking and seeks to generate positive publicity from it, the company has to be extra sure of its ground.
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Marks & Spencer, which has already put sustainability centre-stage with its high-profile Plan A strategy, clearly takes the view that its palm oil policy is worth trumpeting. Having announced late last year that it is now purchasing GreenPalm certificates for 100% of its palm oil, the retailer has this month run advertisements promoting its palm oil position in The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Times and The Daily Telegraph. In addition to its GreenPalm undertakings, the ads reiterate M&S’s commitment to source 100% sustainable palm oil by 2015.
But palm oil, while undoubtedly a headline sustainability issue for food manufacturers and retailers, is an area not without its fair share of controversy.
The problem has been that progress made by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the multi-stakeholder initiative launched back in 2004, has been slow. While the initiative includes NGOs, most prominently WWF which co-founded the programme, some campaigning groups have been frustrated by the slow progress.
Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO) only became available in 2008. The quantities available have been limited but still the take-up has disappointed many. Suppliers have been critical that companies have not been prepared to back up noble words with deeds by paying the substantial premium for CSPO. Capacity is now somewhere around 2m tonnes, representing around 10% of global palm oil production, but so far actual sales have lagged some way behind. WWF expects capacity will be between 3m and 4m in 2010, and is confident that with increased capacity, the premium will reduce substantially and that there will be much more enthusiastic take-up in 2010. Sceptics remain to be convinced.
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By GlobalDataGreenPalm, meanwhile, has been criticised as ‘greenwash’ by some activists. The programme is a means of supporting the development of sustainable palm oil production but a GreenPalm logo by no means signifies that a product has been made from only sustainable palm oil. Campaigners are concerned about the potential for consumers to be misled.
Mike Barry, head of sustainable business at M&S, is among the stout defenders of the GreenPalm programme. “We absolutely believe that GreenPalm is a step in the right direction in a long journey,” Barry tells just-food. “We will continue to increase the number of products containing sustainable palm oil, but in the short term we need to provide encouragement to producers to invest in making the necessary positive changes, and we can do that through GreenPalm. We are committed to the RSPO and in the early stages of its application, through the GreenPalm system, we want to reward those producers that are doing the right thing.”
Far from being ‘greenwash’, Barry believes GreenPalm itself sends out an important message about the company’s commitment to sustainable palm oil. “We believe that by supporting the GreenPalm system it provides a clear signal to the market that there is a desire to procure more sustainable palm oil. We hope that through our public commitment, it will drive real change on the ground.”
As for the pace of progress of the RSPO itself, Barry believes the challenges inherent in such initiatives must not be underestimated. “We have been involved in the early stages of other voluntary initiatives and one of the common challenges is that it takes time to build up supply and demand for certified products. Given the way in which palm oil is used in our end product, it does require a significant change to existing infrastructure for manufacturers to provide its customers with certified palm oil. This will become much less significant as the volume of certified palm oil available to the market increased.”
Like WWF, M&S expects the problems created by the premium payable for CSPO will decrease over time. “CSPO will cost more whilst volumes are small and new approaches to segregation are implemented. But the price premium should drop as volumes grow and the segregation investment is completed. In the meantime by buying Green Palm certificates to cover all our usage we are directing a premium back to producers who’ve taken a lead in implementing more sustainable production techniques.”
In countering criticism of the RSPO, Barry stresses the multi-stakeholder credibility that the programme has. Not only is the scheme “the most robust certification scheme for palm oil”, he says, but it was also borne out of a “rigorous multi-stakeholder process, whereby social, environmental and industry interests carry the same weight”.
In spite of the criticism directed towards the RSPO, Barry has no doubt that making it a priority within the Plan A platform is the right thing to do. “Palm oil remains a key commitment under the Sustainable Raw Materials pillar of Plan A. We believe we have a responsibility to work with our supply chain to ensure that we protect valuable natural resources that are impacted through palm oil production, hence our public commitment to ensure that all of our palm oil comes from sustainable sources by 2015. The impact of palm oil production in some parts of the world, and in some production systems does have a significant impact on the natural environment.”
M&S is now more than halfway through the Plan A strategy and Barry says the retailer has made “good progress across the board”. He sees sustainable palm oil and fish sourcing as areas of prime focus within Plan A for the coming year. “We’ll make further packaging reductions beyond the 12% we’ve achieved to date,” Barry adds.
In general, Barry sees the establishment of high environmental and social standards in its manufacturing supply chain as an important priority. “The key development will be to drive an integrated environmental and social standard for our manufacturing sites. We’ve worked with our suppliers on pilot factories over the last couple of years. This has helped us identify best practice for managing environmental, people and lean manufacturing techniques.”
