rspo

Fire burns through forest in Sumatra, clearing the area for plantations © Greenpeace/Novis

It's been a few weeks since the Esperanza's tour of Indonesia wrapped up with an exhausting but thrilling week of direct action focused on various palm oil tankers, and I've since left those humid equatorial climes to return to a chilly British winter. But even though the ship has moved on to other countries and campaigns, the palm oil campaign continues and in the past few weeks there have been some developments.

The most obvious has been annual meeting of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in Bali - this could have been the moment the industry got its act together and did something other than spin the usual load of greenwash over its involvement in the destruction of south east Asia's rainforests. Sadly, it was not to be. Although our ship painting/blockading actions drew a lot of attention, as did our earlier revelations about United Plantations and their 'sustainable' palm oil, no real progress was made.

Indonesia: oil palm saplings are still replacing peatlands and rainforest

Cooking oil, chocolate, soap, washing powder, cosmetics and biofuels are just a few of the hundreds of products reliant on one key ingredient - palm oil. Demand for this versatile oil is rising rapidly. Today 80 per cent of world production comes from plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. Palm oil is the leading cause of destruction in Indonesia, where it is spelling disaster for local communities, biodiversity, and climate change as palm plantations encroach further and further into rainforest and critical peatland areas.

These issues are meant to be addressed by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the self-regulating industry body created in 2001 to develop sustainable solutions to palm oil production. To date, despite seven years of existence, no "sustainable" palm oil has entered the market place appearing in products of its members (who include household names like Boots and BP). But that's supposedly now about to change as the first certified palm oil shipment from Malaysia arrives this week in Rotterdam.

Today, we're launching the next stage in our campaign to protect the rainforests of Indonesia from the expansion of the palm oil industry. Our volunteers, dressed as orang-utans, are currently climbing over the London headquarters of the company behind Dove, which uses palm oil as one of its ingredients. Our latest research shows that Unilever, the makers of Dove, is buying palm oil from companies that are destroying valuable rainforest and peatland areas, which is bad news not only for the millions of people who depend on them for their way of life and endangered species such as the orang-utan, but also for the global climate.

Last week, Sainsbury's announced that it aims to use only sustainable palm oil in its own-brand products. Sounds great, and with Asda having made a similar announcement earlier this year, you might think supermarkets will soon be stocking only those palm oil products that weren't helping to cause the indiscriminate destruction of forests in places like Indonesia. The truth is that, while both companies score top marks for excellent intentions, delivery is going to be decidedly tricky as there is currently no credible way of telling whether palm oil is 'sustainable' or not.

KitKat, Flora and Pringles are among the brands linked to destruction of forests and peatlands for palm oil © Greenpeace/Oka Budhi

If, as you read this, you're tucking into a KitKat or dipping into a tube of Pringles, you might be interested to know that they feature in our new report about the impact of the palm oil industry on tropical rainforests and climate change. Along with Flora margarine, these products contain palm oil which is linked to the destruction of forests and peatlands in Indonesia. As the report shows, it's a recipe for disaster.