You may have seen that sustainable palm oil was recently championed by Sir David Attenborough as an essential solution to protect and restore nature, as part of Prince William’s The Earthshot Prize: Repairing Our Planet on BBC1.
Efeca is trying to help Dorset become the world’s first sustainable palm oil county by encouraging local businesses and organisations – whether they are cafes, restaurants, fast food outlets, large businesses, tourist attractions, councils, hospitals or schools – to make the switch to sustainable palm oil in the food they use, serve and sell.
The Dorset Sustainable Palm Oil Community initiative is being led by Efeca, a small team of experts working on resourcing commodities sustainably, based in Dorset. Having worked with private sector, public sector and NGOs nationally and internationally, and with climate change in the news daily, Efeca decided that it was important to help closer to home.
Palm oil appears in 50% of packaged products on a supermarket shelf, from cloudy lemonade to biscuits, chocolate to lipstick, shampoo to cakes, and even some toilet rolls. As a result, you may not be aware that you are using or buying it. The aim of this free initiative is to help local businesses identify conventional palm oil in the products they use and sell, and assist them in making the switch to a 100% certified sustainable alternative. Making this switch to sustainable palm oil is easy, and should not bring any additional cost.
By demanding and using sustainable palm oil, you can send a clear message to businesses, traders and producers that we want sustainable palm oil – the type of palm oil that can protect important biodiversity, peatlands, wildlife corridors for orangutans, pygmy elephants – to be the norm.
Several local organisations have already signed up to the Dorset Sustainable Palm Oil Community. These include Bournemouth University, St Osmunds Middle School in Dorchester, two school food providers (Local Food Links covering West and North Dorset, and Forerunner Personal Catering covering BCP), Fish n Fritz fish and chip shop in Weymouth and Coconut and Cotton zero waste shop in Shaftesbury. Warrior Agency, an ethical PR agency in Bournemouth as well as Dorset Climate Action Network (DorsetCAN) are also supporting the initiative. We also have several other champions in the pipeline who are in the process of signing up.
What should businesses in Dorset do to find out more / sign up?
Go to https://www.efeca.com/our-work/dorset-sustainable-community for more information and to sign up, or email dorsetsustainablecommunity@efeca.com. We will be there to help you every step of the way.
Dorset Sustainable Palm Oil Community – Efeca
https://www.efeca.com