‘Dying for a biscuit’

Today (19 November), 30 Greenpeace UK volunteers recreated a life-size burnt and smouldering rainforest, complete with lifelike animatronic orangutan, at the main entrance to the corporate headquarters of Mondelez, makers of Oreo cookies near Uxbridge.

Five climbers have scaled the outside of the building to hang a banner that reads ‘Oreo, drop dirty palm oil’ and volunteers are decorating the building with giant Oreo-shaped stickers. They are also handing out information to staff about the impacts of Oreo’s links to palm oil producers that destroy rainforest.

As staff arrive, they are hearing sounds of the rainforest along with recorded messages that were submitted by hundreds of Oreo customers expressing their disappointment at the company’s link to forest destroyers.

‘It’s time Oreo listened’

Greenpeace is calling on the makers Oreo to drop Wilmar International, ‘the biggest and dirtiest palm oil trader in the world’.

Mondelez, which also makes Cadbury chocolate and Ritz crackers, is one of the biggest palm oil buyers worldwide. It promised to stop buying palm oil from forest destroyers in 2010 but has yet to keep that promise.