POLICY ON PALM OIL/PALM OIL DERIVATIVE SOURCING
1. POLICY
Any palm oil or palm oil derivatives used in ASDA own label products must be sourced from plantations that are recognised for not endangering vulnerable native forests and their fauna and flora, particularly areas of high conservation value forest or peat lands.
ASDA requires that all palm oil in its own label product is from RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) certified sources from January 2013 and palm kernel oil is from RSPO certified sources from January 2015 (at the latest).
2. BACKGROUND
Palm oil is an ingredient in a wide variety of food and non food grocery products. To minimise environmental damage, the plantations supplying palm oil in ASDA own label product must be grown in areas where the conservation value has been previously degraded rather than new clearance of forest or peat lands.
For further information on sustainable palm oil/palm kernel oil and certified sources, please visit the RSPO website, www.rspo.org).
3. IMPLEMENTATION
•
This policy applies to food and non-food grocery products
•
Full records must be maintained, and be made available on request, to allow the origin (i.e. plantation) of any palm oil/palm kernel oil used in ASDA own label product to be determined at any time.
•
Suppliers must be working towards only using RSPO certified palm oil and palm kernel oil used in ASDA own label product. ASDA strongly encourages all its suppliers to only use RSPO certified palm oil and palm kernel oil as soon as possible, but at the very latest this must be achieved by January 2013 and January 2015 respectively.
•
As an interim measure, until January 2013 (for palm oil) and January 2015 (for palm kernel oil), oil with a Green Palm trading certificate may be used (www.greenpalm.org). After this, suppliers must be able to demonstrate that the oil they are using in ASDA own label product is from an RSPO certified source.