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Burger King stops buying palm oil from SMART
Burger King, the second-largest US hamburger chain, announced Friday that it would no longer buy palm oil from PT Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology (SMART), a company accused of destroying rain forests in Indonesia
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urger King, the second-largest US hamburger chain, announced Friday that it would no longer buy palm oil from PT Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology (SMART), a company accused of destroying rain forests in Indonesia.
Burger King canceled its palm oil purchase contract with SMART after an independent report by Control Union Certification (CUC) and BSI group said that the Jakarta-based company’s plantation activities had negatively affected primary forests and peatlands. With that decision, the Miami-based fast-food chain was now joining Nestle and Unilever that had earlier also suspended their purchase contracts with SMART.
In a statement available on its website, SMART said that it was disappointed with Burger King’s decision, but said that it would continue to engage Burger King to help the fast-food chain understand SMART’s commitment on sustainable production methods.
“We hope to welcome [Burger King] back as customer soon. We are confident that Burger King’s decision doesn’t represent the view of the majority of our customers,” the company said.
SMART hired CUC and the BSI group to verify a series of Greenpeace reports which said that the company had endangered rain forests and orangutan habitats in East and West Kalimantan.
The company claimed that it had complied with all prevailing regulations in doing its business. It said that all the concession areas in Central and West Kalimantan were affected by earlier activities such as logging and slashing and burning by other parties, before the company won government permits to develop these areas.
The verification, however, found that the SMART had planted on peatland more than 3-meter deep on two estates, in breach of a presidential decree on deep peatland. The company acknowledged the finding but claimed the planting was “unintentional”.
The verification also identified that 21 percent of the examined lands, or 37,698 hectares of the company’s total 182,528 hectares, was opened before an independent high environmental impact assessment (Amdal) was conducted. (rdf)
