Seventh Generation Goes for Sustainable Palm Oil

Leading US brand of environmentally healthy household solutions, Seventh Generation, has announced a commitment to obtain 100% of the palm oil used in its products from certified sustainable sources by 2012. The company’s new initiative will support responsible producers while adding an important additional measure of renewability to its best-selling consumer goods.

Over the next two years, Seventh Generation’s new programme will identify responsibly managed palm oil sources. Once they have been certified by the Round-table on Sustainable Palm Oil, the company will transition all its purchasing to these new suppliers and create 100% traceable, environmentally-benign palm oil supply chain.

This will counter the devastating deforestation and rising greenhouse gas emissions from the felled rainforests of Southeast Asia, and the imperiled  indigenous peoples and endangered species living there, caused by the growing demand of palm oil.

Chairman of Seventh Generation, Jeffrey Hollender, was quoted as saying:

Palm oil is used in more than half of all the products in the typical supermarket. But few people are aware of what this actually means on the ground in the places that produce it. The hidden costs are enormous, and they can’t be allowed to continue. As one of the larger non-food buyers of a palm oil derivative in the country, our new sourcing initiative will help jump-start the sustainable palm oil industry. We also hope it encourages a national conversation about these issues and creates a model other companies will follow. Palm oil can be responsibly produced, and that’s our ultimate goal: to make the entire global supply is as low-impact as possible. That’s what we’ll be talking about on Thursday as we begin this work.

A crucial component in countless items found in the typical grocery store—from foods and drugs to personal care items and detergents—palm oil is one the world’s most important vegetable oils and a key ingredient in the plant-based surfactants used by Seventh Generation’s cleaning products.◊

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