After more than a year of campaigning and thanks to your efforts, PepsiCo just came out with a new palm oil policy, strengthening its commitment to uphold the rights of local communities and workers and to identify the plantations where the palm oil used in its products is grown.
It's a big deal and YOU made it happen.
Unfortunately, it's still not good enough. PepsiCo's new policy still contains massive loopholes.
Under the new policy, the rainforest will still be destroyed, endangered species like the Sumatran tiger and orangutan will still suffer, and workers (many of them children) will still be exploited.
How? The policy does not cover PepsiCo's business partner in Indonesia, Indofood, which produces all of PepsiCo's products in Southeast Asia.
PepsiCo has caved to our pressure before -- and we can get it to cave again.
Tell PepsiCo to close the loophole in its new palm oil commitment and to extend it to Indofood's Indonesian operations.
PepsiCo has committed to cutting conflict palm oil from its supply chains everywhere but Indonesia. Yes, you read that right, PepsiCo's commitment does not cover its operations in the world's biggest palm oil producing country.
Producing more than 33 million tonnes of palm oil every year, Indonesia has the highest rates of deforestation in the world, and is the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, largely due to the expansion of plantations on peatland forests.
Last but not least, it has an ongoing legacy of social conflict, land rights violations and labor abuses. Despite all of that, PepsiCo has the nerves to exclude the country from its commitment… talk about smoke and mirrors!
PepsiCo uses an immense amount of palm oil: its annual consumption could fill enough Pepsi soda cans full of palm oil to circle the earth at the equator four times. Put another way, the tropical land base needed to feed PepsiCo's global appetite for palm oil, each year, is a quarter million acres of land, most of which used to be rainforest. Due to its size and influence, PepsiCo has a key role to play in driving the real change that is needed in Indonesia.
Tell PepsiCo to close the loophole in its new palm oil commitment and to include Indofood's Indonesian operations.
A commitment that does not apply to Indonesia will not break the link between PepsiCo's products and the destruction of the rainforest -- endangering orangutans, elephants, tigers and rhinos and abusing the rights of local communities and workers.
SumOfUs members around the world are changing the palm oil sector one day at a time -- whether it's by signing petitions, tweeting at a company, or donating, you're making a real difference to the future of our rainforests.
We've had victories with McDonald's and Yum! Brands (owner of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell) on palm oil this year, who have both come out with zero-deforestation policies. Now, let's turn up the heat on PepsiCo and make sure its Indonesian operations are covered in its new policy.
Tell PepsiCo to close this loophole and take action to clean up its supply chain - including the operations of its Joint Venture Partner Indofood.
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More information:
[video]PepsiCo announces a new palm oil policy, SumOfUs, September 2015
A Gap the Size of Indonesia in Latest Palm Oil Commitment from PepsiCo, Rainforest Action Network, September 21, 2015.
Indofood: PepsiCo's Indonesian palm oil problem, Rainforest Action Network and Rainforest Foundation Norway, September 23, 2015
PepsiCo palm oil specific commitments, PepsiCo, September 2015