Pressure increased on palm oil producers in 2013, when fires set to clear rainforests blanketed Southeast Asia in a thick haze. Big palm-oil traders said they would stop buying from suppliers who wrecked the rainforest, amid broader concern about deforestation’s contributions to climate change. By 2020, 83% of Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil refining capacity wouldn’t buy palm oil linked to deforestation, according to Chain Reaction Research, a Washington, D.C.-based sustainability risk analyst group.
Wall Street Journal
Pressure from businesses and environmental groups has slowed the destruction of rainforests to produce palm oil in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest country.
Rising demand for the commodity has tested those efforts, but so far further deforestation has been kept in check.
