16/10/2009 (Panap.Net) - Global climate change and the food crisis are taking centre stage in the international policy arena. Today is World Food Day and in November the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will host the World Summit on Food Security in Rome. In December, Copenhagen will host the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15), which will attempt to produce a viable framework for tackling climate change and the Kyoto Protocol.

What does this have to do with chocolates and soap?

In response to growing consumer concerns over climate change, deforestation and the environment, Lush Cosmetics and Cadbury New Zealand have pulled palm oil from their product lines. Lush cited deforestation, land grabbing, climate change and habitat destruction as reasons for switching to palm-free soap products. In addition to removing palm oil from its own products, it is launching a campaign to educate consumers and to encourage other companies to follow suit.

Lush is not the only corporation rethinking its use of the popular oil. When it switched from cocoa butter to palm oil earlier in the year to save on food costs, Cadbury New Zealand faced consumer protests, petition campaigns and a ban on Cadbury products by the Auckland Zoo. Within weeks of the protests, which occurred in August of this year, the company decided to phase palm oil out of its products.

Consumer upset over the use of palm oil is not a new phenomenon, but with the current international focus on the food crisis and climate change, consumer demands are being taken seriously. Some companies have responded by opting for certified palm oil, purchasing through the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), however many companies opt not to take this route due to the higher cost. Moreover, even though the RSPO does provide a tighter set of requirements than most domestic legislation, the process is not perfect and does not change the fact that industrial-scale plantation agriculture is inherently unsustainable.

Added to this, the corporations running palm oil plantations have been found guilty of violating environmental and social guidelines. A recent audit by the World Bank's International Financing Corp (IFC), the results of which were made public in August, found that Wilmar International was not in compliance with the standards set out by the IFC. This resulted in a decision by the IFC to suspend funding to all new palm oil projects pending a review of its environmental and social guidelines.

Even more recently, a report released by Friends of the Earth in October 2009 found the Indonesian government granting licensing agreements to palm oil companies in protected areas, national parks, indigenous lands and animal habitats. According to the report, 43% of the land being acquired in the study area was by RSPO member companies.

As international policy-makers convene to discuss climate change and the food crisis, palm oil must be on the agenda. The RSPO will hold its seventh annual Roundtable meeting for stakeholders in Kuala Lumpur in November, just prior to the WSFS in Rome. The upcoming meetings provide a venue to build on the momentum of the consumers' movements and the recent IFC audit and to demand issues such as pesticide use, land grabbing, habitat destruction and deforestation receive genuine attention. Now is the time for true, people-centered, biodiversity-based approaches to the food crisis and climate change.