As a conservation charity run by the North of England Zoological Society, they manage field conservation programmes in the UK and overseas alongside conservation breeding programmes in the zoo. However, they also recognise that an ever increasing demand for natural resources is putting tremendous pressure on ecosystems and wildlife globally.
As a business, we are committed to improving environmental performance, including sustainable resource use, in all of our business operations. We are the first UK zoo, and only the second one in Europe, to be awarded ISO14001 – an independent, internationally recognised environmental standard. We are also one of only a handful of zoos in the UK to be awarded a Green Tourism Gold award.
Palm Oil
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil found in around 50% of packaged supermarket products, including food products such as biscuits and margarine, and personal care products, biofuel and animal feed. Along with an increasing human population, the demand for vegetable oil is also increasing annually. Palm oil is the highest yielding of all the vegetable oils, producing more oil per hectare than any other oil. This makes it the best one to use, in a world where we are asking more and more of the land. It’s also highly versatile; hence the wide range of products in which it can be used. In Indonesia and Malaysia where around 85% of all palm oil is grown, the oil palm industry is a huge part of the economy and creates millions of jobs.
Our concern is with the deforestation, loss of biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions which have resulted from the rapid and unregulated expansion of unsustainable plantations. Vast areas of rainforest once home to orangutans, tigers, elephants and rhinos, have been cleared to make way for oil palm trees. The new plantations contain just a fraction of the flora and fauna of rainforests and cannot sustain the native wildlife. As a result, animal numbers are falling fast. The impact on global warming is also of great concern; rainforests growing on peat soils have been cleared, releasing carbon stored in the peat into the atmosphere and contributing significantly to global warming. We work with partners on the ground in Borneo and Sumatra, protecting and conserving the wildlife of these incredibly important, species rich islands.
Sustainable Palm Oil
Transforming the palm oil market to a sustainable and traceable supply chain is the most responsible path and the first step to ensuring that the industry impacts as little as possible on the biodiversity of the regions it is grown in. A boycott of palm oil would simply increase the demand for other less efficient edible oils, potentially having even greater environmental impacts. The Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is the most recognised certification scheme globally, with 20% of palm oil now being certified. Although this is a positive step on the road to responsible palm oil, the RSPO still has some way to go to further enhance the scheme and move swiftly towards a ‘deforestation free’ status through a traceable and transparent process.
“Transforming the palm oil market to a sustainable and traceable supply chain is the most responsible path.” - Cat Barton
The Challenge
Chester Zoo’s Sustainable Palm Oil Challenge (launched in September) aims to make sustainable palm oil the industry norm. The challenge is in finding a way of celebrating the companies who are already committed to sustainable palm oil and supporting those that want to become sustainable through various different activities:
Shopping List: Individual action
Thanks to recent changes in EU legislation, every food product sold to the public in the UK that contains palm oil must have ‘palm oil’ listed on the packaging. Some will also state if their palm oil is certified sustainable, however others won’t. We are crowd-sourcing a ‘shopping list’ gallery of products which contain RSPO sustainable palm oil, and for those products not labelled, our team are contacting the companies producing them.
The Green Gold Conspiracy: A new audience
Alongside Coney, a theatre production company, we are reaching new audiences with the palm oil message through a piece of experimental theatre. The production, called The Green Gold Conspiracy, an interactive game of probability, is served over a three-course meal and gives audiences the chance to explore the science behind food sustainability. The first screening took place at The Lowry Theatre in Manchester on Friday 23rd October 2015.
Restaurant Tool-kit: Engaging businesses
Following research into the awareness and knowledge of sustainable palm oil amongst the restaurant community in Chester, and following our experience of sustainable palm oil procurement in our restaurants at Chester Zoo, we put together a Restaurant Guide. This ‘tool-kit’ is full of practical tips to help businesses make and deliver their sustainable choices. We are working with a number of restaurants to become a ‘Sustainable Palm Oil Restaurant Partner’, of which The Lowry Theatre is our first.
To find out more about our challenge and the action we are taking, please visit our website at www.actforwildlife.org.uk/palmoilchallenge