The recent weeks has seen some interesting stakeholder pressure action by Greenpeace pressuring Nestle and its brand KitKat to discontinue buying palm oil from the palm oil supplier Sinar Mas . Sinar Mas, Greenpeace claims, is involved in illegal rain forest clearance in Indonesia.
In a recent post I was highly critical of the shock approach Greenpeace has decided to go with. This is the post: What the Greenpeace Nestle KitKat campaign is missing
Todays post is a follow up post on the results this campaign produced and my view on whether this campaign was a success or not.
This is what the campaign succeeded in doing:
- Result 1: They might not want to hear it but it seems that the pressure had an effect: Nestlé sets timetable for palm oil decision
- Result 2: Nestle needed to explain its stance on palm oil and the actions it has taken to address this: Q&A on palm oil the corporate Nestle page
This is an overview of the campaign coverage and results:
http://prezi.com/kmrh4fmlzsen/nestle-kerfuffle/
But was the campaign really a success for the promotion of Sustainable Palm Oil production?
I believe that the campaign was not as successful as it could have been. Why? Well, how will you remember this campaign? Will you remember it as a campaign that helped the orang-utans in the Indonesian rainforest and promoting sustainable palm oil practice or will you remember it as a a social media case study on how to not do social media?
I will unfortunately remember it as a campaign on how to not do social media and this is a real shame.
For sustainable palm oil to be the only real palm oil option it is crucial that companies such as Nestle and Cargill (palm oil supplier for Nestle) are investing heavily in the availability of sustainable palm across the globe. This is the problem with sustainable palm oil. We simply do not have enough of it available.
The Greenpeace ‘shocker’ campaign has not helped in my opinion as it mostly created a hostile environment between consumers, NGO’s and companies. We need to do better if we really want to change the way these companies do their business. We need to engage and help companies do the right choices. This is our duty as modern stakeholders!
paign video. Instead of being overly graphic and shocking they should have included more context and information on which we could all act on. And not just stop buying KitKat and boycotting Nestle. We as stakeholders need to understand the overall circumstances in order to be able to make a sound judgment in my opinion. We need to know the reason why palm oil is so popular, what the situation in the producing countries is, what the Nestle point of view for not keeping control of its supply chain is, etc. This is what Greenpeace should have focused on.
To make it short: Yes I learned a lot and yes I like the approach Starbucks is taking with its 
A clearer presentation of my services and expertise for corporates and individuals as an expert in Sustainability, CSR and Social Media.
I think this is/are a valid question/s to ask in the wake of the problems Apple for example is having when you think about their