By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
On the Guardian Environment Blog at the end of March a banner advert read: "Sustainable. Food Security. Societal Advancement. This is Palm Oil"
Really? Honestly? I think not.
Palm oil expansion is known to be one of the major drivers of deforestation in South East Asia and not only there, of that we can be sure. Communities like the indigenous Penan people of Malaysia find themselves under severe threat from illegal and sometimes violent encroachment of palm oil companies onto their territory. Therefore making such blatantly misleading claims to consumers should be banned. Well, actually it already has been and twice at that but they continue to make such claims and seem to be flouting the law and judgements against them. They can; they have the big money.
Already in 2008 and 2009 the British Advertising Standards Authority banned two adverts (one on television and one in print) containing similar claims about the sustainability of palm oil on the grounds that "the claim was likely to mislead."
The Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC), however, which happens to be behind all these ads has chosen to disrespect the ASA's ruling and has gone ahead repeating their greenwash for a third time. How many more times will they do so and be allowed to get away with it? And, I ask, how come that the Guardian Environment Blog has no decent ethics and even permits such an ad on its site? It all boils down to money, once again and to greed.
Palm oil, in the same way as biofuels, is not good for the Planet, nor its people, and the wholesale destruction of rainforests more than likely, speaking as a forester, has an adverse effect on the climate locally and globally.
In response to this renewed advertising campaign Friends of the Earth has submitted another complaint to the ASA and are confident that they will get a ruling against MPOC's continued misinformation.
However this time hopefully the ASA will actually show some teeth and to advise UK media to ban the repeat offender MPOC from any advertising for a substantial period of time. In addition to that MPOC should be made to publish an advert clarifying the truth around their misleading claims. Furthermore, any media outlet, whether in print, in broadcast or on the Internet, should also be held to account should they permit an advert by the MPOC or any other palm oil company with such misleading claims.
The amount of greenwash out there, even on green and eco websites and Blogs, is absolutely mind boggling and it is those outlets that should know better, and the same goes for the greenwash that comes out of green and eco shops, online or in the High Street.
© 2011
