Mars is looking to simplify its supply chain to deliver deforestation-free palm oil through its Palm Positive plan.
Under the Palm Positive Plan, Mars will reduce the number of mills it sources from and award longer-term contracts only to suppliers who can commit to its environmental, social, and ethical expectations.
As a result it will take its mill count from 1,500 to fewer than 100 by 2021, and said it would further halve that total in 2022.
Grant Reid, chief executive officer at Mars Incorporated, said: “Supply chains are broken. The pandemic has made this even clearer, highlighting the systemic vulnerabilities impacting supply chain communities and health of our planet as well as the urgent need for business to transform buying and supply strategies and practices. Business as usual will not drive the transformational change that’s needed.
“Business can — and must — be powerful change agents for social and environmental change in order to have resilient, reliable supply chains and a more equitable and sustainable world.”
Mars uses satellite mapping to monitor land-use working with Earth Equalizer and Aidenvironment, which it uses to select the suppliers and mills it sources from.
Barry Parkin, chief procurement and sustainability officer at Mars added: “By radically simplifying our palm supply chain, partnering with a smaller cohort of suppliers and rigorously applying the three M’s of Mapping, Management, and Monitoring we can eliminate deforestation and advance respect for human rights.”
