eco-business.com (04/10/2017) - Being more sustainable is good for a company’s bottom line and reputation. So why are companies, as seen in WWF’s recent Palm Oil Scorecard for Singapore and Malaysia, dragging their feet on sustainability? SIIA researchers discuss.

For several years, the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) has been actively engaging industries on the sustainability of their business practices.

What we have found is that while adopting sustainable practices is becoming increasingly important for businesses, many have yet to enact corporate sustainability policies and lack staff trained in identifying and addressing sustainability issues.

A clear example of this is the stance that local companies are taking on palm oil. Last week, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) released its Singapore and Malaysia Palm Oil Buyers’ Scorecard, which revealed that only six out of 47 major Malaysian and Singaporean companies surveyed were buying sustainably produced palm oil.

Many companies cited higher prices and lack of consumer demand as reasons for not doing so. But sustainable palm oil can cost as little as 1 additional cent per litre, and in the week since the Scorecard was launched, over 30,000 members of the public have sent emails to voice their concern to the CEOs of the companies surveyed.

The Singapore Alliance on Sustainable Palm Oil, of which SIIA is a member, was also established last year to make it easier for companies to make the switch by connecting them with other committed buyers and suppliers of sustainable palm oil.

Are companies intentionally dragging their feet on the issue, and how can we send a stronger signal to companies to source more responsibly?

Scoring companies on their sustainability commitments, as WWF is doing, can highlight the gap between public expectations and companies’ actual behaviour. Following the Scorecard’s release, five companies that previously did not respond to WWF’s queries have now publicly committed to sourcing sustainable palm oil.

Efforts made by civil society organisations are also having a tangible impact. Over the past year, local NGO People’s Movement to Stop Haze (PM.Haze) has mobilised volunteers to go door-to-door to help food establishments understand why they should switch to sustainable palm oil. Veganburg is one local restaurant that has heeded PM.Haze’s call.