19 October 2015: Palm oil alternative or a new business model? Solazyme to supply Unilever 3 million gallons of algae oil for soaps and toileteries
Editor's note: The peat smog haze is driving up palm oil's coverage in international media and online. Is the solution a new business model? Better certification? Banks acceding to sustainability rules? Or algal oil? Is 3 million gallons = 13,600 tonnes?
Yes, palm oil is destructive — but scientists are creating
compelling alternatives September 19, 2015 · 11:30 AM EDT By Shannon Kellehe; ...Palm oil comes from
the clusters of brilliant orange fruit of the tree Elaeis guineensis. It’s
grown in plantations that span millions of acres across southeast Asia;
companies often clear-cut forests that are home to endangered orangutans and
Sumatran tigers to plant these trees. Between 1990 and 2010 an area of forest
the size of 2 million football fields was cleared to make way for oil palms.
Doug Boucher, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ tropical forest
and climate initiative, says palm oil presents uniquely sinister problems
because “substantial areas of southeast Asia have very carbon-rich soils, peat
soils, with sometimes quite thick deposits of peat."..... These dangers of palm oil have caused companies to
seek out substitutes. Scientists at the University of Bath in the UK are developing
an oil from a common type of yeast that can grow on almost any feedstock. And
the California company Solazyme has begun extracting an oil with similar
properties from microalgae. Jill Kauffman Johnson, Solazyme’s Global
Sustainability Director, says they prepare the oil in much the way other
companies brew beer. “We feed sugar to the algae, and then put that all into a
large fermentation tank,” Johnson says. “The algae then convert the sugar into
oil, and it allows us to produce large amounts of oil in a matter of days.” Solazyme
has a contract to supply the sustainability-minded company Unilever with 3
million gallons of this algae oil for its soaps and toiletries. “We’re also
finding in a recent study that we’ve had done that has been third-party reviewed,”
says Johnson, “the greenhouse gas emission profile with the algae oil produced
at our plant based in Brazil, where he
sugar source is sugarcane, has a lower carbon footprint than that of palm oil
and palm kernel oil.” But despite palm oil’s problems and the promising
alternatives, Boucher says the crop does have some advantages. “It actually
accumulates carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the process of growing. So if
you produce it in areas that are not forested, but rather you use already-cleared
land, you can actually have a positive benefit from
it.”...http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-09-19/yes-palm-oil-destructive-scientists-are-creating-compelling-alternatives
Sustainability:
Paying farmers and preserving forests 9/16/2015 - by Jeff Gelski; Barry Callebaut, Zurich,
Switzerland, issued its own sustainability report for 2013/14, which found 60%
of cocoa farmers in Cóte d’Ivoire are living below the poverty line. Barry
Callebaut pays a premium for “sustainable beans,” which it defines as being
produced either according to a certification scheme such as Utz Certified or
Rainforest Alliance or to Barry Callebaut’s own Quality Partner Program. Under the Cargill Cocoa Promise, farmers
receive a premium by selling Utz, Rainforest Alliance and Fair Trade certified
cocoa beans, said Taco Terheijden, sustainable cocoa manager for Cargill Cocoa
and Chocolate. Under the Cargill Cocoa Promise, $19 million was paid to farmers
in Cóte d’Ivoire, Brazil, Cameroon, Ghana and Indonesia in 2014....As of April,
35% of the palm oil sourced by IOI Loders Croklaan was certified by the R.S.P.O.
and traceable to the mill and plantation level, according to the company, a
palm oil supplier and R.S.P.O. member with a North American office in
Channahon, Ill. IOI Loders Croklaan added 96% of the palm oil and 65% of the
palm kernel oil that it sources is traceable to the mill level. Archer Daniels Midland, based in Chicago and
an R.S.P.O. member, issued a commitment to no-deforestation this year. The
commitment includes no deforestation of high carbon stock or high conservation
value areas, no development of peatlands, and no exploitation of people and
local communities. .... Bunge has a global palm oil sourcing policy that
involves the protection of high conservation value areas, the protection of
peat areas, and the prohibition of forced and child labor. Cargill provided an update on supply chain
traceability for the first half of 2015. Cargill has completed 9 of 11 planned
supplier field assessments in its palm oil supply chain. The Forest Trust
conducted the field assessments. The goal is to achieve 100% traceability to
the mill by December of this year and to provide palm oil that is 100%
traceable to sustainably managed plantations by
2020....http://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/news_home/Supplier-Innovations/2015/09/Sustainability_Paying_farmers.aspx?ID=%7B035B2B6E-A7D2-46E1-A19F-0415FAC28B71%7D&cck=1
A new business model for palm oil? The recent haze in
Southeast Asia has sparked renewed calls for alternatives to palm oil products.
In this interview, Forum for the Future founder Jonathon Porritt tells
Eco-Business why the industry - which is also provides thousands of livelihoods
worldwide - needs a new business model, not boycotts. By Vaidehi Shah Friday 16 October 2015
http://www.eco-business.com/news/a-new-business-model-for-palm-oil/
Why Sustainable Palm Oil Is Possible by The Nature
Conservancy Posted: 10/14/2015 2:36 pm EDT
Updated: 10/14/2015 2:59 pm EDT http://blog.nature.org/conservancy/2015/10/14/why-sustainable-palm-oil-is-possible/
Can REDD save Indonesia’s peatlands from burning? By Chris Lang 14 October 2015
http://www.redd-monitor.org/2015/10/14/can-redd-save-indonesias-peatlands-from-burning/
Hit companies where it hurts by Henry Barlow Oct 1, 2015,
5:58 pm SGT The contributors to the haze appear not primarily to be the larger
oil palm plantation operators but relatively small estates, owning perhaps only
one or two mills, or independent mills depending largely, if not exclusively,
on fruit submitted from smallholders. Many such operators and smallholders have
no wish to comply with sustainability principles. Could the Monetary Authority
of Singapore instruct banks operating in Singapore not to extend financing and
trading facilities to companies linked to mill owners who are not in compliance
with agreed sustainability principles as required by the Indonesian Sustainable
Palm Oil (ISPO) or Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standards? These
companies should also be required to provide independently certified reports
that they have assisted all mill owners and smallholders submitting fruit to
their mills in complying with the sustainability principles of ISPO or RSPO.
Other central banks in he region could also adopt similar measures.
http://www.straitstimes.com/forum/letters-on-the-web/hit-companies-where-it-hurts