Don’t Palm Off These Beautiful Creatures!
Even though Greenwashing is on the decline these days, it is still prevalent across many popular industries. It’s very popular to scrutinize the legitimacy of the commitment of bigger and more mature companies to their “Green” initiatives and goals.
This scrutiny is well deserved because most of the times these giant companies are also some of the biggest polluters and creators of negative externalities further down their products supply chain. Two critical factors firms do consider when communicating their value proposition to consumers is engagement and more importantly credibility as we discussed in class. Failing to succeed in those two factors can really hurt a company’s brand reputation and customer relationships.
So after learning all this, I was extremely disappointed to run across this article right here. The article discusses the absolute abuse of Indonesian and Malaysian jungles that occurs due to palm oil harvesting by giant confectionary companies Nestlé, Mars and Hershey. These companies have all previously made pledges to clean up their supply chain with a specific focus given to sustainable and ethical palm oil sourcing. They have all delayed or watered down these plans and in some cases even clearly violated them.This palm oil is harvested on land that should lawfully be inhabited by orangutans, rhinos, tigers, clouded leopards and many more rare and endangered species that are getting wiped out rapidly.The World Wildlife Fund has stated that an area equivalent to the size of 300 football fields of rainforest is cleared each hour to make way for palm oil production. This is a pretty shocking metric that really gets the severity of this issue across. This is a great source to learn more about this issue in detail if you are interested in the topic.
Learning that Halloween, one of my absolute favorite celebrations has been tainted by this complete violation of trust by these large firms is devastating. Businesses are promising to use more plantations and ethical suppliers to source the palm oil, but this commitment is not rock solid and the change is not occurring fast enough. Should we as consumers assure that these companies face some sort of backlash for these blatant lies? Do you think the government should intervene in an issue that is becoming so critical to ecology maintenance? It is difficult to sit silent as a consumer when considering this matter.
References:
Image 1: ISEAL Credibility Principles
Hi Samar,
I really enjoyed reading your post and seeing large companies like Mars, Nestle and Hershey still indulge into greenwashing kind of makes mad. I really think that these companies should set an example for other small companies to carry on the Green initiative. I definitely think government should intervene and make sure that such false advertisement does not take place (maybe have laws/policies to ensure that companies don’t involve into greenwashing)
Hi Samar,
It was so disheartening to learn about the dishonesty in these business giants, yet at the same time I am glad that these horrendous practices are not hiding in the dark. Although I do agree that government intervention is the most direct and effective way to achieve true sustainability (because no one likes punishments right?), governments are often late to the game. And not to mention the complexity of passing a law – with all the lobbying? No thanks. Perhaps it is worthwhile to look into education in management? Like providing training to help managers/execs/CEOs to get on board?
Yeah, that would be a great idea. A great way to cultivate a change towards a more sustainable mindset in big businesses is to educate and inform high-level management about sustainable business practices. The government could intervene through positive policies as well, like for example subsidizing purchases of ethically sourced palm oil but that type of intervention does not seem feasible in Canada, right now atleast.