Greenpeace has called on the multinational Procter & Gamble (P&G) to commit to an immediate “no-deforestation” policy after linking the company to palm oil suppliers in Indonesia which have allegedly engaged in destructive deforestation, clearing of endangered animal habitat and potentially illegal forest fires.



The environmental group has concluded a year-long investigation into P&G suppliers and found several appear to be linked to environmentally destructive practices associated with palm oil – estimated to be in more than half of all household consumer products, including food, cosmetics and cleaning items.

In 2013 P&G bought about 462,000 tonnes of palm oil, including some from some of the world’s largest processors. Less than 10% of the palm oil used by the company is certified sustainably sourced, Greenpeace said.

“As a result of rainforest destruction by Procter & Gamble’s suppliers, household brands containing palm oil, such as Head & Shoulders shampoo and Gillette shaving gel, are contributing to climate change, key tropical biodiversity loss and social deprivation,” the Greenpeace report said. It said palm oil production was the single biggest driver of deforestation in Indonesia.

Greenpeace said its investigation had linked some of the suppliers to clearing of habitat of the endangered orangutan and Sumatran tiger, and the deaths of a number of orangutans next to the Tanjung Puting national park.

“There are outstanding questions to be answered by Bumitama and BW Plantation in respect of evidence of an orangutan graveyard in close proximity to concessions owned by the companies,” a Greenpeace senior campaigner, Reece Turner, told Guardian Australia.

Turner said a police investigation was under way, but the companies implicated had failed to answer questions publicly.

In Riau province last year, hundreds of illegal forest fires to clear plantation land contributed to Asia’s worst air pollution crisis in decades. A number of P&G’s suppliers ship their product from Riau’s Dumai port, Greenpeace said, and the lack of transparency in the supply chain made it difficult to know exactly where a company’s palm oil came from.

A spokeswoman for P&G told Guardian Australia the company was “strongly opposed to irresponsible deforestation”.

“P&G … have taken a series of steps as part of our overall sustainability program to ensure our practices and those of our partners and suppliers follow sustainable practices,” she said.

The company outlined a number of goals, including 100% sustainably purchased palm and palm kernel oil by 2015, and 100% recycled or third-party certified paper products by 2020.

“P&G has also signed the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) commitment to help ensure zero net deforestation by 2020,” she said.

Greenpeace said P&G’s 2015 goal was “not looking good”, but the policy was inadequate regardless.

“Companies should remove palm oil that is linked to destructive forestry practices from their supply chains by implementing ‘no-deforestation’ policies, or cancelling contracts if suppliers fail to act,” Turner said.

“Part of this is ensuring full supply chain traceability and advocating industry-wide measures that support an end to deforestation, such as tightening of RSPO [Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil] criteria.”

Fulfilling RSPO criteria still does not guarantee a company is completely free from palm oil unsustainably sourced from deforested regions or cleared peatlands.

“Consumer companies may use the RSPO standards as a basis, but need to go beyond them if they want to break the link between palm oil and deforestation to clean up their supply chains,” said Turner.

Certification of sustainable palm oil is routinely criticised as not going far enough. The WWF said last year there was no real reason for companies not to be using 100% certified oil.

The campaign group described P&G as both a “market leader and a lagger”, for failing to drive change in the industry.

“Greenpeace contacted P&G about its palm oil sourcing practices in May 2013, which means it’s nearly had a year to react with a robust ‘no-deforestation’ policy that would stop exposing its customers to forest destruction,” Turner said.

“In the meantime, other big palm oil consumers such as Unilever, Ferrero, L’Oreal, Delhaize, Kellogg and the world’s biggest palm oil trader, Wilmar International, have committed to no deforestation.”