Cargill, one of the world’s largest agribusiness companies and a significant palm oil trader and producer, today announced a new “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation” policy. The policy applies to Cargill’s entire supply chain, including third party suppliers – requiring them to protect High Carbon Stock, High Conservation Value, and peat landscapes, as well as adopt a variety of measures to respect local community and land tenure rights.

Cargill’s new policy follows similar ones from Wilmar International and Golden Agri-Resources. Now, combined, approximately 60 percent of global palm oil trade is covered by these No Deforestation policies.

The policy was praised as a significant step forward by groups including Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, and Forest Heroes. However, NGOs did call on Cargill to provide more concrete details on their implementation plans, ban hazardous pesticides and methane emissions (as Wilmar and others have done), and expand their palm oil policy to other commodities they deal in such as cattle, soy, and sugar.

Cargill’s new policy is expected to increase customer and investor pressure on other palm oil suppliers such as IOI Loders Croklaan, Sime Darby, Musim Mas, KLK, and Asian Agri to adopt similarly strong standards over the next several months.