Palm Oil
Find out more about our approach to sourcing palm oil
Establishing and maintaining minimum standards and understanding how palm oil is used within our products and engage suppliers to support the production and procurement of sustainable palm oil
- RSPO certified with supply chain certification to final ingredient or product manufacturer; and
- Purchased from First Importers of palm oil who meet the following standards:
- Not contribute to clearance of high carbon stock (HCS) forests
- Not contribute to peatland expansion (regardless of depth), and use best management practices for existing plantations on peat
- Be traceable from refinery to extraction mill and from validated Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) sources
- Protect human rights in line with M&S Global Sourcing Principles
M&S requires all direct suppliers to report on their use of palm oil by volume, supply chain, and certification status. |
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First Importers will have their compliance managed directly by M&S. |
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Currently all of our palm oil is approximately 69% segregated, 30% mass balance and 1% covered by RSPO credits. We have set a new target that all palm oil in food products will be sourced from RSPO segregated targets by March 2021. See our M&S Foods Palm Oil Policy for more details.
Find out more about how we're performing against our palm oil policy.
Supporting market transformation through working with industry partners, standard setting organisations and other stakeholders
The Retail Palm Oil Group (RPOG) is a non-competitive coalition of Retail Companies with a common aim of promoting the adoption of sustainable palm oil. Currently the Group’s members trade in every continent, although there is a predominance of companies with head offices based in Europe. M&S is not a formal member of this Group due to RSPO rules that prohibit any Board member having dual representation, however we participate informally but actively in all RPOG forums and discussions.
M&S helped form the Palm Oil Transparency Coalition (POTC) to develop approaches to manage issues not covered by the current RSPO standard and enable retailers to hold palm oil importers to account. The POTC completes an annual assessment against a range of sustainability criteria including deforestation and human rights. Their assessment enables us to benchmark the progress of importers and have dialogue with these producers to step on progress in these challenging areas.
Palm oil has had a lot of negative press in the recent years and whilst there is no disputing some of the challenges with its use, we have worked with NGOs who tell us that it is important that we continue to work using palm oil and help improve standards within palm oil sourcing. We need to understand the implications of using other fats and oils which have their own sustainability challenges. We are working with Forum for the Future and other brands to understand the issues around a wider range of fats and oils.