Boots & Palm Oil

I realise I've been a bit quiet lately on here, but I've been waiting for some more responses from companies on the issue of palm oil.

Today I heard back from Boots. It's a long reply and for once, they've actually bothered to write details, explaining the various types of palm oil used in products and attempt to answer my specific answers.

"As one of the first retailers to join the RSPO in 2006 Boots recognise the considerable environmental and social impact of large scale palm oil production. Via the European Palm Oil Retailer Group hosted by the British Retail Consortium we help fund a RSPO representative and are working to a find way to make available credibly certified sources of palm oil in the products that we make and sell.

The palm oil supply chain is very complex and as palm oil can reach products in a number of different forms labelling is not as easy as for organic or Fairtrade products. To illustrate this (and to answer your questions) there are three possible ways palm oil is used in Boots health and beauty products.

i) Direct use of palm oil in products. Contrary to some press reports there is very little use of palm oil in health and beauty products. Boots do not use any neat palm oil in our products. If we did this would appear on the product ingredients list.

ii) Ingredients directly made from palm oil. The main products concerned here are solid soaps that use ingredients made from palm oil. Like other cosmetics & toiletry producers we have a legal obligation to identify on pack the ingredients in our products. Where ingredients are based on palm oil the regulations require us to use the Latin name for palm (Elaeis Guineensis). We also list the common name equivalents on our website:
http://www.boots-uk.com/App_Portals/BootsUK/Media/PDFs/CSR/Herbal_extracts_INCI_name_information_Aug_2008_.pdf

Currently the extract (fraction) of palm oil which is used to make the soap ingredients is not available as a Certified Sustainable Source (CSPO). We are working with our suppliers to develop certified sources and also look at alternative materials. We are aiming to complete this work in 2010

iii) There are also some ingredients which are made by breaking down the chemical structure of vegetable oil and then reformulating it. In theory any vegetable oil can be used as the starting material, (including palm). As the processing passes though several stages and suppliers on its way to the final product tracing the source is not easy. A simple "contains palm oil" label would be difficult to justify here as the likely palm content of the product is usually going to be very low. Certified sustainable sources are currently only available for palm material used in the food industry therefore are not available as these derivatives. We are working with ingredients suppliers to identify if palm is used and what the options are to move to either sustainable sources or only use non palm vegetable oils.

More information and our palm oil policy is available on our website.
http://www.boots-uk.com/Corporate_Social_Responsibility/Environment/Biodiversity.aspx "