Palmwatch

Since 2000, industrial palm oil mills have caused 47 percent of the deforestation in Indonesia — fueling global climate change and displacing communities in the process. To promote corporate transparency and accountability, IDI and the DSI have partnered to develop a public dashboard called PalmWatch, which links actors in the industry (mills, parent companies, suppliers, and 13 prominent consumer brands) to past, current, and projected deforestation levels in three steps:

1. The backend scrapes mill disclosures from brands like Hershey’s and Kellogg.
2. The records are standardized and joined with the verified mills, parent companies, and suppliers from World Resource Institute’s Universal Mill List to complete a supply chain.
3. Each mill’s catchment area is estimated using local road networks and the maximum distance palm fruit can travel before it spoils.
4. Total hectares of forest loss is computed within each area using satellite imagery.
5. Deforestation summary statistics are computed at each level in the supply chain and exposed through the website.

The tool has many audiences. Advocacy organizations can identify mills causing environmental damage, trace those mills’ supply chain to upstream consumer brands, and then target those brands in their campaigns for reform. Meanwhile, global consumers can make more informed choices about their spending.

Partners

Inclusive Development International (IDI) partners with advocacy organizations around the world to defend local communities’ land, natural resources and human rights against threats from harmful investment projects.