HRH The Prince of Wales’s May Day Business Summit on Climate Change
I'm delighted to have the opportunity, as part of your May Day summit, to launch a major initiative on palm oil. It is one that will have a significant impact, not just on climate change but also on the production of the rainforest, two courses which you, Sir, have done so much to champion. The context of this initiative is that, at Unilever, we have been embedding sustainability into our activities for more than a decade. In the mid-90s, we committed to source all of our fish from sustainable fisheries. The business justification was simple, no fish, no fish fingers. To meet the goal, we had to forge new partnerships, in this case, with the World Wildlife Fund, and create new institutions, the Marine Stewardship Council. It is a source of great pride to everyone in Unilever that, a decade on, the MSC has become the global authority on what is and is not a sustainable source for fish.
In 2005 we took the decision to move all of our tea onto a sustainable footing. Again, this is not a trivial undertaking. Unilever accounts for 12% of the world black tea crop, and we source it from 7 000 farmer estates across three continents. Building on this, we are, today, announcing our intention to move to 100% certified, sustainable palm oil by 2015, and we will also support an immediate moratorium on any further deforestation in Indonesia linked to palm oil cultivation. The issue is complex, but we have been working on it for some time. In 2004, we took a leading role in setting up the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, and we currently chair it. However, the problem is becoming more critical. Indonesia has the fastest deforestation rate of any forested country.
And although palm oil cultivation is responsible for a small share of that, it is clear to us that we now need to move further and faster. Given that there is no certified sustainable material on the market today, our challenge is to build a coalition of like-minded companies who can work towards this goal and establish a global system of certification and traceability. We cannot allow the increased demand for palm oil exacerbated by the rush into biofuels, to lead to more deforestation in Indonesia. We should be able to reconcile these conflicting demands, because we know that in the long term, it is cheaper and more efficient to cultivate palm according to sustainable economic practises, than it is to do so by conventional means.
In fact, the Unilever experience has always been that lurking behind every complex sustainability issue is not just a social and environmental case for action, but also a sound business case. And, finally, Sir, I would like to express my admiration for the leadership which you have demonstrated on both climate change and the rainforest. Unilever is delighted to put its weight behind both these causes.
Thank you.
