Major Palm Oil Growers Agree to Moratorium on Deforestation

The world’s five largest growers of palm oil — Sime Darby, Asian Agri, IOI Corporation, Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad and Musim Mas — have agreed to halt the clearance of high carbon stock forests while they conduct a yearlong study aimed at defining the threshold for forest protection.

The study is being funded by the five grower companies, agribusiness groups Wilmar International and Cargill and consumer-goods company Unilever.

The pledge follows a letter coordinated by Green Century Capital Management and signed by institutional investors representing over $600 billion in assets under management that calls on these growers to adopt an immediate moratorium on clearance of HCS forest or else risk losing access to markets increasingly sensitive to concerns around deforestation.

The announcement comes as major companies like Kellogg’s and ConAgra that use palm oil are working to implement their recently announced “zero deforestation” palm oil policies.