Multinational food and personal care products company Unilever says it will use only certified sustainable palm oil within five years.
Some of ithe company's products on the New Zealand market use palm oil. At present only 15% of the palm oil it uses is from sustainable sources, the company says, and it plans to more than double that this year.
The World Wide Fund for Nature has developed a scorecard ranking companies that use the most palm oil and how much comes from sustainable resources.
Australian WWF spokesperson Jonathan Larkin says only palm oil that comes from plantations developed before 2003 can be certified as sustainable.
"What we've asked is that some of these leading companies commit to only using certified sustainable palm oil by 2015.
"Unilever is one of the companies that's made that commitment and we'll certainly be working to hold them to it."
