Attempts by the global palm oil industry to enhance its green credentials received a major blow after the UK Advertising Standards Authority's (ASA) ruled that adverts for "sustainable" palm oil were misleading.
The UK ASA ruled that recent print ads from the Malaysian Palm Oil Council claiming that the industry was environmentally sustainable and contributed to alleviating poverty were misleading and unsubstantiated.
The watchdog said that while efforts have been made to tackle illegal deforestation associated with palm oil plantations, "there remained concerns about the indirect effects" of the industry's expansion. This meant that claims that palm oil was wholly sustainable could not be backed up and were likely to mislead.
Avowals that production would not result in deforestation or other practices that were detrimental to the environment could also not be substantiated, the ASA ruled, while there was no consensus that palm oil helped to reduce poverty, particularly in rural communities.
The ASA pointed to the Renewable Fuel Agency's Gallagher Review, which indicated that the production of biofuels from energy crops such as palm oil could have adverse social effects, including a rise in food prices. It also referred to Friends of the Earth's (FoE) contention that the farming of palm oil had led to the displacement of indigenous communities.
The non-governmental organisation (NGO) likewise attested that such activity had a negative impact on housing and land rights, led to low wages and the poor treatment of local people. FoE was one of three complainants against the Council's advert.
The decision was welcomed by members of the Penan tribe in Borneo, who said that there was little evidence that palm oil plantations had helped address poverty in their community.
"How come the advert claimed that palm oil helps alleviate poverty, when from the very beginning, oil palm plantations have destroyed our source of livelihood can made us much poorer?" asked a spokesman for the Penan. "A lot of people are hungry every day because our forest has been destroyed."
The Penan, with the help of Survival International, an NGO that works to protect the rights of tribal peoples, have been fighting for some time to prevent the forests they rely on for food from being cut down to make way for palm oil plantations and logging.
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