2018 saw a year-long intensive global campaign by Greenpeace that aimed to end deforestation for palm oil across the supply chain of the biggest household brands and palm oil buyers in the world. The campaign really ramped up in the second half of the year following the release of the Greenpeace International report, The Final Countdown, which exposed how Wilmar was still buying palm oil from rainforest destroyers and selling this dirty palm oil to brands all over the world.

PT Megakarya Jaya Raya (PT MJR) Oil Palm Concession in Papua. © Ulet Ifansasti / Greenpeace
Massive deforestation in Indonesia. © Ulet Ifansasti / Greenpeace

You and people like you all around the world, took action.

  • Street artists painted murals in 20 cities around the world to draw attention to rainforest destruction for palm oil.
  • Greenpeace activists occupied one of Wilmar’s palm oil refineries, and intercepted a tanker carrying Wilmar’s palm oil products into Europe – twice!
  • After exposing Mondelez’s links to dirty palm oil producers, Greenpeace US activists delivered a giant Forest Destruction flavour cookie to Mondelez, the maker of Oreo, at its global HQ near Chicago, to tell them to STOP buying dirty palm oil from rainforest destroyers.
  • Hundreds of Greenpeace volunteers from all over the world also took to the streets to demand action from Mondelez, the makers of Oreo cookies and one of Wilmar’s biggest customers.
  • A Mondelez factory in Italy was blockaded by Greenpeace Italy, while scenes of forest destruction appeared at Mondelez HQs in Germany, the UK and the USA.

We challenged Mondelez to cut Wilmar off for selling dirty palm oil. And they heard us! Mondelez, along with other brands, told Wilmar it had to get better. All this pressure, combined with the million-plus people demanding change meant they could no longer ignore us.

Thanks to the over 1.3 million of you who called on the biggest global brands to drop rainforest destroyers – we have been able to move the world’s largest palm oil trader, Wilmar, to action. They have now published a groundbreaking plan to map and monitor its suppliers and, ultimately, stop buying from forest destroyers!

If implemented, this would put the palm oil giant, which supplies 40% of the world’s palm oil, one step closer to finally eliminating deforestation from its supply chain and would have a major impact on the rest of the industry.

This is a significant milestone in our fight to end deforestation for palm oil but the fight is not over by any means. Greenpeace will be closely watching to make sure Wilmar delivers on their promise and consumer companies follow suit.