Fighting Global Warming Chris Washington-Sare is Head of Fundraising & Marketing for Greenpeace Australia Pacific. I caught up with him in the thick of the Nestlé Campaign. Greenpeace wants Nestlé to stop buying palm oil from destroyed rainforests. This is an excerpt from our conversation.

BA Tell me about the campaign.

CWS As you know, we have a major global campaign running at the moment. Nestlé is using palm oil from destroyed Indonesian rainforests. Species like orangutans are being pushed into extinction and huge quantities of greenhouse gas are being released, accelerating climate change. The campaign launched on the 17th March 2010 and we have had over a 100,000 people write to Nestlé complaining about their practices. We launched a video which they tried to ban - that’s been seen by over a million people globally[1]. We have had a resounding success so far on that campaign. It’s been a good place to be right now, I must admit.

Nestlé are not the prime target for this campaign. Sinar Mas is the company responsible for the deforestation. They are the largest producers of palm oil in the world. We are asking Nestlé to cut their contracts with Sinar Mas. That has a knock on effect for Sinar Mas. They have to either look for new business or change their business model.

It’s this whole idea of going for one big player and that has ramifications for several others.

[1] The video is shocking and shows a bored office worker opening a Kit Kat. Instead of the normal chocolate sticks inside the wrapper he unconsciously eats an orang-utan’s finger spilling blood on his keyboard and smearing it over his face.