Environmental

Palm

At P&G we are committed to the responsible sourcing of palm oils within our supply chain and driving adoption of sustainable practices more widely. We are members of RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) and are committed to the RSPO’s 2018 Principles and Criteria (P&C’s). We work with a diverse range of partners committed to ensuring the responsible production and consumption of palm oil.

P&G Perspectives on Palm Oil – Benefits, Questions and Choices

P&G’s Purchase and Use of Palm Oils

P&G currently purchases ~0.8% of global palm oils production. We do not own or play a direct role in the cultivation of palm. Palm Oil Mills and Palm Kernel Oil Crushers are owned by growers and processors/traders who purchase palm fresh fruit bunches (FFB) and produce palm oil (by pressing the fleshy palm fruit) and palm kernel oil (by crushing kernels or stones).

P&G uses palm-based ingredients mainly in our Fabric Care, Home Care and Beauty categories. We purchase palm oils - mostly palm kernel oil - and their derivatives in 2 ways:

Palm trees with road running through the middle

As a Derivative (30%)

finished ingredients from ingredient manufacturers and suppliers globally

As an Oil (70%)

directly from refineries sourced from Malaysia and Indonesia. We purchase Palm Oil and Palm Oil fractions (17%) and Palm Kernel Oil (83%)

P&G Manufacturing Ingredients for Use in our Brands

Palm fruit is harvested from palm trees which then continue to grow and produce more fruit all year around. Max life of a pam tree is around 25 years.

P&G purchases a combination of Palm Kernel Oil, Palm Oil and Coconut Oil. We use them to manufacture oleochemicals materials primarily for use by P&G in our brands. We supply any materials we cannot utilize to external customers. The P&G oleochemicals network includes 2 plants that we manage:

In Kuantan, Malaysia, FPG, a 50:50 joint venture with FGV.
In Sacramento, California, USA, a wholly owned P&G plant.

External Sales by P&G Chemicals

Why does P&G sell palm ingredients to others?

P&G purchases and processes only enough palm oils to manufacture the quantities of ingredients we need to use in our brands. Natural oils are a mixture of components of different carbon chain lengths – known as “fractions” or “cuts”. Many of these “cuts” can be used directly by P&G but some are not suitable for use in our products. Fortunately, these ingredients are often useful in other sectors or industries. We believe that the responsible thing to do is to find a “second useful life” for these materials which is why we make them available for external sale via P&G Chemicals.

P&G’s Approach to Responsible, Sustainable Palm is built on 3 Pillars of Action:

Responsible
Sourcing

Clear, Transparent Sourcing Policies and Suppliers Expectations
Defined RSPO Certification Goals
Supply Chain Traceability

Compliance
Monitoring

Providing Grievance Reporting Transparency
Implementing Satellite/Concession Map Environmental Monitoring
Engaging for progress with FGV through action planning and monitoring with FLA

Partnerships &
Force for Good

Enabling Smallholder Transformation for Livelihood Improvement
Conservation and Protection Partnership with WWF-Malaysia
Engagement and Partnership to support sustainable practices and standards

Key Milestones

In 2020, P&G made significant progress in all 3 areas of our strategy: Responsible Sourcing; Compliance Monitoring and Partnerships and Force for Good Programs. This progress is enabling us to accelerate our RSPO certification commitment goals in our brands and announce new partnerships, These include:

We are advancing our commitment to deliver 100% RSPO certified palm oil in our brands to end 2021 – a full 12-month acceleration – versus previous commitments
Learn More

Announce the first of our new Conserve-Protect-Enable partnership program with WWF Malaysia
Learn More

A full data and metric set including progress can be found:

P&G Responsible Palm Oils Data
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