Nestlé identified over 1,000 cases of deforestation per day in palm oil areas
Swiss multinational Nestlé received hundreds of thousands of alerts of forest clearing near its palm oil suppliers in 2019 via satellite monitoring.
This content was published on
1 minute
Swissinfo.ch's India specialist covers a wide range of issues from bilateral relations to Bollywood. He also knows a thing or two about Swiss watchmaking and is partial to the French-speaking part of Switzerland.
Introduced in 2016, the Starling satellite monitoring service sends the company alerts whenever a forest patch is cleared within 50km of one of the over 1,600 mills it sources palm oil from. In 2019 Nestlé received 388,047 alerts – mainly in Indonesia and Malaysia – which corresponds to 1,063 alerts a day.
Between 30% and 40% of the alerts occurred within palm oil plantations linked to Nestlé’s suppliers, says Rob McWilliam of the Earthworm Foundation, commissioned by Nestlé to monitor its footprint.
The total forest loss detected by Starling near Nestlé-supplying mills in 2019 amounted to 472,513 hectares – six times the size of New York City. Nestlé says only 5% of this forest loss occurred within the boundaries of plantations that supply the Swiss company. However, this is a conservative estimate as Nestlé does not yet have the coordinates of all the palm oil plantations in its supply chain.
In 2019 Nestlé sourced roughly 455,000 metric tonnes of palm oil and palm kernel oil. Of this, 62% can be traced back to the plantation and 93% to the mill. Nestlé is unlikely to meets its commitment of having a zero-deforestation supply chain by 2020 announced ten years ago. So far, around 70% of its palm oil is deforestation free.
Swiss minister: Italy will help Switzerland in EU talks
This content was published on
Bern can count on the backing of Italy as it re-enters talks with the European Union on future relations, Viola Amherd says.
Student protestors at University of Lausanne continue pro-Palestine sit-in
This content was published on
Since Thursday, a hall on campus has been occupied by students calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions and a ceasefire in Gaza.
This content was published on
Swiss public broadcasters RTS and SRF are drastically reducing their communications via the social network X (formerly Twitter).
Israel: president of Swiss universities rejects academic boycott
This content was published on
Luciana Vaccaro, president of Swissuniversities, the umbrella group of Swiss universities, is not in favour of an academic boycott of Israeli universities.
First large-scale alpine solar plant approved in Switzerland
This content was published on
The approval was met with satisfaction by the project's organisers, but it also brings with it a certain amount of pressure.
‘In Indonesia palm oil is bigger than watchmaking is for Switzerland’
This content was published on
The Indonesian ambassador to Switzerland defends the sustainability of his country’s palm oil exports amid pressure from a referendum.
Can commodity traders get a grip on their soy supply chains?
This content was published on
An experiment underway in Brazil shows how commodity companies are trying to trace products back to the farm to reduce deforestation. Can it work?
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.