Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Breaking News-RTRS-Most European firms not buying green palm oil-WWF

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Most European palm oil buyers have shunned expensive eco-friendly palm oil, derailing efforts to preserve rainforests, environment group WWF said on Wednesday.
A scorecard by WWF showed only ten of 59 European manufacturers and retailers have sourced palm oil from Southeast Asian producers who do not fell rainforests and destroy wildlife. Among the top ten are Unilever and Cadbury .
As of October, less than a fifth of the 1 million tonnes of palm oil certified as environmentally-friendly has been bought, WWF data showed, although market uptake was on the rise in the last four months.
WWF issued the scorecard a week before the industry-driven Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) meets in the Malaysian capital to assess the development of a green standard for top palm suppliers Indonesia and Malaysia.