Cargill issues new palm oil sustainability report

Cargill is on track to make its goal of 100% sustainable palm oil supply chains by 2020. Today, the company is publishing its second palm oil progress update, summing up the efforts made so far.

A growing volume of palm oil and palm kernel oil is traceable back to the mill level. On the ground, our outreach to suppliers is expanding. We are using road shows and visits to mills and plantations to work with our partners on sustainable practices and help them make improvements.

In late 2014, we acquired a new plantation, Poliplant Group, in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. PPG will help us satisfy the growing demand for traceable, sustainable palm oil.

With the help of the environmental consultancy firm Daemeter, work is underway to bring the new plantation in line with Cargill’s high sustainability standards. The goal is to achieve certification by the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil as soon as possible.

Overall progress doesn’t mean that there aren’t any bumps in the road. Traceability numbers show drops in some places and gaps in others. That mainly has to do with changing volumes and the currently imprecise reporting methodologies from some suppliers. We are working to help them advance as required.

Meanwhile, our project with unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) is moving into the operational phase. A Cargill team is set to start flight training in Malaysia. They will soon graduate as certified UAV pilots.

With the UAVs, we are pushing the envelope in sustainability. They will help us map and monitor valuable pieces of forest land that need to be protected, and improve land and water use, so that we can grow more on the same amount of land and manage our environmental footprint better.