09/09/2010 (Green Spot Blog.com) - According to an artcile in GreenBiz.com, Burger King has become the latest company to stop buying palm oil from an embattled Indonesian company its critics accuse of deforestation.

Burger King will no longer purchase palm oil from a subsidiary of Sinar Mas after an audit “raised valid concerns about some of the sustainability practices of Sinar Mas’ palm oil production and its impact on rainforests,” Burger King announced on its Facebook page.

According to the article, the fast food giant will transition to a new supplier for 176 restaurants that received palm oil from Sinar Mas subsidiary PT SMART Tbk. Over the last year, Unilever, Nestle and Abengoa Bioenergy, a Spanish energy company, have walked away from PT SMART’s palm oil. Staples, Woolworths, and U.K. retailers Tesco and Carrefour stopped buying products from Asia Pulp and Paper, another Sinar Mas subsidiary. HSBC also sold off all of its shares in Sinar Mas.

The article notes that the driving force behind these developments has been Greenpeace, which launched a series of campaigns to raise awareness of what it considers to be Sinar Mas’ destructive forestry practices, while also applying public pressure on consumer-facing companies to cut ties with the Indonesian conglomerate.  Underpinning these campaigns were a series of reports with titles that include “Caught Red Handed,” “Burning Up Borneo” and “Sinar Mas Continues Rainforest Destruction.”

In response to allegations in the reports of land-clearing and other wrongdoings, Sinar Mas hired a team of independent auditors to verify the Greenpeace claims. The report found Sinar Mas had indeed cleared and planted on deep peatland “but not as extensively as claimed,” and it cleared land in certain areas before required environmental impact assessments were approved. The report also noted weaknesses in PT SMART’s documentation of its engagement with landowners during compensation dialogues.

Robert Piller, president of Eco Marketing Solutions, a provider of natural lip balm, some of which contain palm oil, says,”Last year, after learning about the destructive conditions of deforestatio in many of these rain forests, we immediately switched suppliers to one that is part of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).   We hope that this publicity that Burger King has been getting will encourage other companies that use palm oil as one of their ingredients to switch to RSPO suppliers, as well.”

In response to this growing concern of non-regulated expansion, many palm oil producers and users of Palm oil formed the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The goal of this group was to develop a strategy, guideline, and even an inspection and certification system for Palm Plantations throughout the world. The objective is to be able to show that these certified Palm Plantations are in fact sustainable and are not practicing deforestation to expand their productivity.

Good stewardship is important and companies should look toward vendors who are working to improve sustainability.  Kudos to Burger King for being socially aware.