While Neste was holding its annual general meeting at Helsinki’s Fair Centre, Greenpeace activists held a demonstration out front. Clad in orang-utan suits, they jumped around distributing flyers to attendees as they arrived.
According to Greenpeace, palm oil cultivation is detrimental to rainforests and speeds up climate change. Neste Oil’s vice president for Renewable Fuels, Simo Honkainen, dismissed Greenpeace’s demands during the meeting.
WWF (World Wildlife Foundation), a global conservation organization, called on Neste Oil to commit to using responsibly produced palm oil, so called RSPO-certified palm oil, in a statement on the same day.
Honkainen told YLE that Neste will start using RSPO-certified oil as it becomes available on the market.
RSPO certification does not prohibit even the most harmful environmental practices, however, Greenpeace stated in their press release on Friday. These include logging of rainforests, clearing peat land and habitats of endangered species, using fire in clearing, and applying internationally prohibited pesticides.
“Neste Oil has announced that it aims to stop using palm oil by 2020. We don’t have that much time. According to the UN Environment Programme, almost all of the Indonesian lowland rainforest will be logged by then. Neste Oil has to stop using palm oil now,” said Maija Suomela, a Greenpeace palm oil campaigner.
Neste Oil produces bio-diesel fuel from palm oil imported from Malaysia.
According to YLE, Neste still has big plans for palm oil in the near future. This includes doubling production to 170,000 tons at its refinery in Porvoo this year, the second oldest city in Finland, producing 800,000 tons at a new facility in Singapore in 2010, and starting a similar refinery in Rotterdam in 2011.
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