Kellogg’s’ approach to palm oil has featured heavily in the UK news in recent months, after Bedfordshire-based sisters Asha and Jia Kirkpatrick – aged 10 and 12 – launched a campaign urging the company to set stricter sustainability targets around the commodity.
More than 780,000 people signed the sisters’ petition.
A Kellogg’s spokesperson told edie that “although Kellogg’s uses a very small amount of palm oil globally, [it has] been working since 2009 to improve its sustainability.” Indeed, larger proportions of the corporation’s global forest footprint are accounted for by its use of paper and card-based packaging and its sourcing of soy.
To that end, the update to the Global Palm Oil Strategy was complemented by the launch of Kellogg’s’ first Global Deforestation Policy.
The Policy states that Kellogg’s will develop a “Protect, Restore and Fund” framework to “deliver nature-based solutions that take into account both environmental and social elements at the global and local level”.
On paper and card, the Policy commits Kellogg’s to continuing to use only materials that are certified as recycled or from sustainable sources through bodies such as the FSC. In order to further improve its footprint here, the firm has said it will “prioritise” certification schemes approved by the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) while urging all suppliers to collect and disclose more robust environmental data. This data should be used not only by Kellogg’s, but to drive change at a “regional and jurisdictional level”, the Policy states.
As for soy, the Policy re-iterates that 97% of the soy used by Kellogg’s in 2018 originated from low-risk markets. Much of the remaining 3% was sourced from regions across the Brazilian Amazon. On this soy, the Policy states that Kellogg’s will only source from suppliers complying with the Brazilian Forest Code.
Across its entire soy portfolio, the firm has said it will “continue to push suppliers to provide more and better traceability data to verify that their operations are neither directly or indirectly associated with illegal deforestation activities” and “implement strategies that support or incentivize sustainable soy production and avoided land-use change”.
However, the Policy stops short of setting any time-bound numerical targets for soy.