Greenpeace, Nestlé and the Palm Oil Controversy: Social Media Driving Change? (Abridged)

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"Two years ago, we asked Nestlé to stop buying palm oil from a company that was consciously destroying Indonesian forests. They never answered us...we thought that with the evolution of social media we could strike harder and in a more organized fashion this time around."

- Daniela Montalto, Forest Campaign Head at Greenpeace

"The ability to foster change proves that social media has come of age. Social media is a powerful communication and coordination tool...The world is changing and irresponsible businesses must now acknowledge that the revolutionary power of social media is a serious threat."

- Richard Matthews of Green Conductⁱ

Greenpeace put pressure on Nestlé to discontinue buying palm oil from its supplier Sinar Mas Group, which was alleged to have been involved in illegal rainforest clearance in Indonesia.

The social mediaⁱⁱⁱ campaign included a provocative video combined with a massive online protest on the Nestlé Facebook page. This forced Nestlé to clarify its stance on palm oil and create a timetable for cleaning up its palm oil supply chain.

Daniela Montalto (Montalto), Forest Campaign Head at Greenpeace, "We had been asking Nestlé to stop buying products from rainforest destruction for two years before we launched our campaign.

Nestlé cracked within just two months because the overwhelming public response made the company listen." With this many analyst wondered whether social media had come of age and had demonstrated its value in fostering change.

Palm Oil, Rainforests and Orangutans - Next Pages >>

i] Green Conduct is a forum for discussing and communicating about sustainability.
ii] Greenpeace, based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, is a non-governmental environmental organization. It has focused on issues of deforestation, global warming, commercial whaling, overfishing, and nuclear issues.
iii] Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content." Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies.

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