'Green' activism picking on one company
I've seen this link several times now from Greenpeace, about how Nestlé should be boycotted because they are using palm oil. Unfortunately, it's like a lot of things Greenpeace produce, it's horribly biased, at least in its presentation.
Things like:
"Nestlé uses palm oil in a wide array of its products" -- yes, it probably does. Who else uses it? Or more importantly, who /doesn't/ use it?
"Nestlé is the largest food and drinks company in the world, and already a major consumer of palm oil" -- notice they don't say "the largest consumer", so who is the largest consumer and why are Greenpeace protecting them?
"the last three years have seen Nestlé’s use of palm oil almost double" -- a meaningless statement, it might be doubling from 1% to 2% or from 25% to 50% (or even from 0.01% to 0.02%). And 'double' what? Volume of palm oil used? Proportion in relation to other consumers?
"Sinar Mas is the largest producer of palm oil in Indonesia. It supplies many food, drink,cosmetic and biofuel companies worldwide – including Nestlé" -- so why are none of them named? Would it actually make any difference to Sinar Mas if Nestlé stopped buying from them, or have they got enough other buyers? According to their video, palm oil is used in lots of things including cosmetics and biofuel, in what proportion of the total demand? Biofuel in particular is the big thing politically (the EU has ruled that all car fuel must contain a certain proportion of biofuel in the future), is what Nestlé use significant?
For that matter, I can't see anywhere in the article where they claim that Nestlé only (or even mostly) buy from Sinar Mas. Since some people have said that "they only buy things with palm oil in if they know where it comes from" I deduce that there are places in the world which produce acceptable palm oil, do Nestlé buy it from those places as well?
Now possibly Nestlé are the major cause of the deforestation there, I don't know, but by picking on them and not giving any figures (or any links to them) and not mentioning the other companies they make it look like a vendetta.
It reminds me of when I was at university, and the National Union of Students did a boycott of Barclays because they were involved in South Africa. It turned out that so were all the other banks, to a similar amount, but they picked on one of them. Going after all of the nasty people is too hard, let's pick on one and hope that enough people will join in to do some damage (it's called "divide and conquer", by picking on one you hope that their suppoorters will be few enough that those supporting the others will join in to bash the competitor).
Things like:
"Nestlé uses palm oil in a wide array of its products" -- yes, it probably does. Who else uses it? Or more importantly, who /doesn't/ use it?
"Nestlé is the largest food and drinks company in the world, and already a major consumer of palm oil" -- notice they don't say "the largest consumer", so who is the largest consumer and why are Greenpeace protecting them?
"the last three years have seen Nestlé’s use of palm oil almost double" -- a meaningless statement, it might be doubling from 1% to 2% or from 25% to 50% (or even from 0.01% to 0.02%). And 'double' what? Volume of palm oil used? Proportion in relation to other consumers?
"Sinar Mas is the largest producer of palm oil in Indonesia. It supplies many food, drink,cosmetic and biofuel companies worldwide – including Nestlé" -- so why are none of them named? Would it actually make any difference to Sinar Mas if Nestlé stopped buying from them, or have they got enough other buyers? According to their video, palm oil is used in lots of things including cosmetics and biofuel, in what proportion of the total demand? Biofuel in particular is the big thing politically (the EU has ruled that all car fuel must contain a certain proportion of biofuel in the future), is what Nestlé use significant?
For that matter, I can't see anywhere in the article where they claim that Nestlé only (or even mostly) buy from Sinar Mas. Since some people have said that "they only buy things with palm oil in if they know where it comes from" I deduce that there are places in the world which produce acceptable palm oil, do Nestlé buy it from those places as well?
Now possibly Nestlé are the major cause of the deforestation there, I don't know, but by picking on them and not giving any figures (or any links to them) and not mentioning the other companies they make it look like a vendetta.
It reminds me of when I was at university, and the National Union of Students did a boycott of Barclays because they were involved in South Africa. It turned out that so were all the other banks, to a similar amount, but they picked on one of them. Going after all of the nasty people is too hard, let's pick on one and hope that enough people will join in to do some damage (it's called "divide and conquer", by picking on one you hope that their suppoorters will be few enough that those supporting the others will join in to bash the competitor).