MIN ION CASE ANALYSIS CASE: NESTL I In the 35 degree Sumatran heat, a plantation worker tends to the neat rows of palm. Using his machete he carefully cuts back weeds and clears space for this latest crop. He spends every morning tending to hectares of these plants, often helped by his wife and their family including the children when they are not at school. There is just too much work for one person to manage alone. This is part of the reality of the independent palm oil supply chain, which includes large plantations and mills as well as smallholder plantations, in Indonesia and elsewhere in the world. Palm oil is in nearly everything - it is in close to 50% of the packaged products in supermarkets, everything from pizza, doughnuts and chocolate, to deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and lipstick. It is also used in animal feed and as a biofuel in many parts of the world. Palm oil is very versatile and has many different properties and functions which makes it useful and widely used. It is semi-solid at room temperature so can keep spreads spreadable; it is resistant to oxidation and so can give products a longer shelf-life; it is stable at high temperatures and so helps to give fried products a crispy and crunchy texture; it is also odourless and colourless so doesn't alter the look or smell of food products. In Asian and African countries, palm oil is used widely as cooking oil, just like sunflower or olive oil elsewhere. However, palm oil has been and continues to be a major driver of deforestation of some of the world's most bio-diverse forests, destroying the habitat of already endangered species like the Orangutan, pygmy elephant and Sumatran rhino. This forest loss coupled with conversion of carbon rich peat soils are throwing out millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributing to climate change. There is also exploitation of workers and child labour. These are serious issues that the whole palm oil sector needs to step up to address because it doesn't have to be this MIN ION CASE ANALYSIS CASE: NESTL I In the 35 degree Sumatran heat, a plantation worker tends to the neat rows of palm. Using his machete he carefully cuts back weeds and clears space for this latest crop. He spends every morning tending to hectares of these plants, often helped by his wife and their family including the children when they are not at school. There is just too much work for one person to manage alone. This is part of the reality of the independent palm oil supply chain, which includes large plantations and mills as well as smallholder plantations, in Indonesia and elsewhere in the world. Palm oil is in nearly everything - it is in close to 50% of the packaged products in supermarkets, everything from pizza, doughnuts and chocolate, to deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and lipstick. It is also used in animal feed and as a biofuel in many parts of the world. Palm oil is very versatile and has many different properties and functions which makes it useful and widely used. It is semi-solid at room temperature so can keep spreads spreadable; it is resistant to oxidation and so can give products a longer shelf-life; it is stable at high temperatures and so helps to give fried products a crispy and crunchy texture; it is also odourless and colourless so doesn't alter the look or smell of food products. In Asian and African countries, palm oil is used widely as cooking oil, just like sunflower or olive oil elsewhere. However, palm oil has been and continues to be a major driver of deforestation of some of the world's most bio-diverse forests, destroying the habitat of already endangered species like the Orangutan, pygmy elephant and Sumatran rhino. This forest loss coupled with conversion of carbon rich peat soils are throwing out millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributing to climate change. There is also exploitation of workers and child labour. These are serious issues that the whole palm oil sector needs to step up to address because it doesn't have to be this