For years, we have actively worked with our global suppliers to ensure that the palm oil we use in our products is sustainably sourced and fully traceable. In fact, we were the first multinational consumer goods company to require suppliers to track all the oil they sell, not just the oil they sell to us.
In 2014, we published our Palm Oil Action Plan, a long-term roadmap to achieve a sustainable palm oil supply, which we launched after achieving our milestone of 100% Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Palm coverage in 2013. The Palm Oil Action Plan defines our position and principles for palm oil sustainability, focusing on supplier expectations, government and sector engagement in key origins and global industry advocacy toward sector transformation.
By the end of 2017, 96 percent of the palm oil sourced by our company was traceable to the mill, and 99 percent was purchased from suppliers with published policies that are aligned with best practice sustainable principles. Building on this progress, we updated our Palm Oil Action Plan in 2016 to include several new key provisions that require our suppliers to:
The Mondelēz International Palm Oil Action Plan details actions to achieve our goals to make sustainable palm oil the mainstream option, based on the principles that production should be on legally held land; not lead to deforestation or loss of peat land; respect human rights, including land rights; and not use forced or child labor.
While Mondelēz International accounts for only about 0.5 percent of palm oil consumption globally, we have played – and continue to play – a leadership role in global industry advocacy toward sector transformation.
To date, we have partnered and engaged with several of the leading global organizations focused on improving the palm oil supply chain.
We continue to maintain our engagement with these and other stakeholders in the palm oil sector to ensure we learn and contribute toward our common goal of achieving palm oil sustainability. Our work with these organizations is based on our view that the complex challenge of producing sustainable palm oil can only be solved through collaboration with all actors in the palm oil supply chain, from growers to suppliers and buyers, as well as local and national government and non-governmental organizations.
Mondelēz International continues to work toward our goal of achieving 100 percent sustainability and 100 percent transparency across the industry.
We are proud of what we have achieved as part of our commitment to sourcing palm oil sustainably and eradicating deforestation in the palm oil supply. We target 100 percent palm oil traceable to the mill and we are at 96 percent as of 2017. We target 100 percent palm oil sourced from suppliers aligned with our sustainability policies and we are at 99 percent as of the end of 2017.
Most recently, we called for our suppliers to act faster to eliminate deforestation and to map and monitor all palm oil plantations and concessions. Specifically, we have asked our suppliers to commit to palm oil concession mapping as a vital step to accountability and change. We also announced our decision to exclude 12 upstream suppliers that were found to be involved in deforestation, because we believe urgent action is needed across the entire supply chain to protect the Earth’s forests and deliver benefits to countries that produce palm oil.
We remain committed to achieving complete sustainability and transparency across our supply chain and the industry at large, and will continue to provide regular updates on our progress.
For further information on our policies and reporting on palm oil, as well as our broader sustainability initiatives, please visit the documents found in Downloads section, below.