Article: Earth Pulse

Tuesday June 2, 2009

Few buyers for green palm oil

MAJOR palm oil buyers face being graded for their green credentials after figures showed that they have bought only a fraction of the sustainable palm oil available. WWF International said only about 15,000 tonnes have been bought out of the 1.3 million tonnes of certified sustainable palm oil made available since November.

Palm oil is used for cooking, in chocolate bars and margarine, as well as in soaps and cosmetics and in biofuels for transport. Buyers include Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, L'Oréal and Cadbury.

WWF said it would assess the world's major users of palm oil over the next six months and publish a "buyer's scorecard" that would show companies that support sustainable palm oil and those that have not fulfilled commitments to buy it.

WWF helped set up the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2002 for the industry to develop greener standards following criticisms that plantations were causing large-scale deforestation and loss of habitat for endangered species.

Certified sustainable palm oil is meant to assure buyers that tropical forests have not been cleared and that environmental and social safeguards have been met during production. But certification can add a premium of around US$50 (RM180) a tonne to palm oil in the wholesale market.

RSPO president Jan Kees Vis said last month that uptake of certified palm oil had been slow because of the economic crisis and companies were not willing to pay the premium. – Reuters

What's the carbon footprint of your toilet paper?

TESCO is charging ahead with its plans to slap a carbon label on all of its private label products to denote the amount of greenhouse gas emissions it takes to produce each item.

The British retailer will include the labels on its Tesco-branded toilet paper and kitchen rolls beginning in late summer. The Carbon Reduction Label accounts for all emissions generated by each stage of the product's lifecycle; Tesco must reduce emissions or lose the right to use the label.

Not surprisingly, the company's recycled toilet paper comes with a smaller carbon footprint when compared to its conventional counterpart: 1.1g of carbon dioxide emissions for each sheet of recycled toilet paper versus 1.8g for Tesco's standard roll.

The company said the emissions savings can be traced to an integrated tissue mill that can turn waste paper into tissue paper in one place in order to achieve greater energy efficiency.

The company's kitchen rolls, or paper towels, made from recycled content also achieved a 15% smaller carbon footprint.

The company's labelling programme in Britain began a year ago with 20 products in four categories – light bulbs, laundry detergent, potatoes and orange juice – and now rings in at roughly 100 items. Coca Cola, Continental Clothing, Halifax, Cadbury, Marshalls and British Sugar are among the companies that have pursued carbon labels for their products and services. – Reuters

More chemicals prohibited

NINE dangerous chemicals used in farming and industry will be added to a list of banned substances which are causing serious health risks.

The nine pesticides and industrial chemicals join 12 substances targeted for elimination under the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).

The banned substances were exceptionally dangerous because: they cross boundaries and are found everywhere, from the tropics to polar regions; they persist for long periods in the atmosphere, soil and water, and take years to degrade; and they accumulate in bodies and in food chains. The chemicals can also damage reproduction, mental capacity and growth, as well as cause cancer.

One of the newly proscribed chemicals is the pesticide lindane. It has been replaced in agriculture, but in some countries it is still used to tackle head lice and so will be phased out over five years instead of the standard one year.

Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) appears in a wide range of products from electronics components to fire-fighting foam, and trade in it amounts to billions of dollars a year.

With no alternatives to some of its applications, it will be restricted rather than eliminated immediately. – Reuters

New to science

SCIENTISTS have found more than 200 new species of frogs in Madagascar, almost doubling the number of known amphibians in the Indian Ocean island, which broke away from Africa almost 160 million years ago, leaving its flora and fauna to develop in isolation.

However, months of instability culminating in a change of government after street protests, have compromised gains in conservation.

"The political instability is allowing the cutting of the forest within national parks, generating a lot of uncertainty about the future of the planned network of protected areas," said David Vieites, researcher at the Spanish National Natural Sciences Museum which carried out the study.

The world's fourth-largest island, known for exotic creatures such as the ring-tailed lemur and poisonous frogs, is a biodiversity hotspot. More than 80% of the mammals in Madagascar are found nowhere else, while all but one of the 217 previously known species of amphibian are believed by scientists to be native.

Human demands on the land and decades of rampant logging have destroyed 80% of Madagascar's rain forest, threatening hundreds of species, said Vieites. – Reuters

This article was taken from: The Star Online: Go Green Live Green 2 June 2009