Neste Oil Corp. announced a commitment to exclusively use certified palm “when sufficient volumes become available.” The company states it believes this will be possible by the end of 2015. In its announcement released June 4, Neste said it recently received its first cargo of 5,000 tons (600,000 gallons) of palm oil from certified sources, and it expects to use at least 50,000 tons of certified palm oil this year.
“Neste Oil has developed a system for the full traceablity of the palm oil it uses, all the way from plantations to NExBTL plants. We believe that responsible companies can make a difference. As a forerunner, Neste Oil is putting a lot of effort into establishing exemplary procedures for its operations, ones that we believe could also act as a model for other companies and industries using palm oil,” said Jarmo Honkamaa, executive vice president, renewable fuels and deputy CEO.
Neste is a member of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil, an organization that brought palm oil producers, users and environmentalist critiques of palm oil expansion together to develop a set of sustainability criteria and certification. The World Wildlife Fund released figures in mid-May that showed only 1 percent of the sustainable palm oil available on the market had been bought. “So far, around 1.3 million tons of certified sustainable palm oil have been produced, but less than 15,000 tons have been sold,” said David McLaughlin, vice president of agriculture for WWF, a founding member of the RSPO. “This sluggish demand from palm oil buyers, such as supermarkets, food and cosmetic manufacturers, could undermine the success of sustainability efforts and threatens the remaining natural tropical forests of Southeast Asia, as well as other forests where oil palm is set to expand, such as the Amazon.”
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