Companies ... PepsiCo
Issues ... Palm Oil and De-forestation

PepsiCo is feeling the heat on palm oil!

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Gmail Peter Burgess
Update: Palm oil
1 message Carys Afoko, SumOfUs.org Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 1:10 PM
Reply-To: us@sumofus.org
To: Peter Burgess

Peter,

It’s been an amazing few months for our palm oil campaign. Together, we made sure that PepsiCo can’t ignore us -- and it’s all thanks to members like you.

Let’s look back to see what we did...

August was a big month.

PepsiCo is feeling the heat on palm oil!

In the lead up to the re-release of Crystal Pepsi (a clear cola sold first in the 90’s) we launched our petition against PepsiCo. Over 135,000 of you signed on!

When Crystal Pepsi hit the shelves in the United States, we crashed the big day with a spoof video of the famous 90’s Pepsi commercial featuring Cindy Crawford. Over 1.4 million people all over the world saw the video because you all watched, liked, and shared the video.

And following that, thousands of you tweeted PepsiCo’s CEO, Indra Nooyi, helping ramp up the pressure on her.

In response to your sustained pressure, last month PepsiCo released a progress report on its 2015 Palm Oil Commitment. PepsiCo outlined that it is committed to assessing the actions of its suppliers and has included a new commitment to intervene on those that are found to be in violation.

That is huge news -- but there's still more work to be done. We still don't have a deadline from PepsiCo to cut ties with suppliers that are causing deforestation and workers' rights violations.

So we're keeping up the pressure. A few weeks ago, we turned up at PepsiCo’s headquarters in New York with our partners Rainforest Action Network, Wildlife Asia, and Racing Extinction to deliver the petition and make your voices heard.

We handed in a 250,000 strong joint petition to PepsiCo’s Vice-President of Communications.

Check out the photos! SumOfUs at PepsiCo's HQ

And below is one of our super members, Roger, at the action (wearing the SumOfUs shirt)!

Our super member Roger at the petition delivery to PepsiCo

Our partners wrote a blog and made a video of the event which you can see here.

And finally, because incredible members like you have chipped in to fund our palm oil campaigns (big shout out to our monthly donors!), we were able to make another donation to WALHI, an on-the-ground organisation in Indonesia like we did last year. It's helping combat forest fires caused by clearing for palm oil plantations.

The money will help fund field investigations and launch a campaign for zero burning. They’re also planning to launch a lawsuit against the companies at fault. For more info you can read this blog.

So a huge, huge thank you to the SumOfUs community. When we stand together, we are powerful. Corporations can’t ignore us.

We wouldn’t have been able to do this without each and every one of you. If together we can keep it up, we'll soon push PepsiCo to do the right thing.

If you have a few coins to spare, please consider making a special monthly donation if you haven't already so we can continue to do important work like this.

Can't chip in monthly or want to do more? Refer your friends to SumOfUs and ask them to join you in this fight.

Thanks for all that you do,

Carys, Hanna, Kat, Fatah, Sondhya, and the team at SumOfUs

More information: PepsiCo's palm oil policies

SumOfUs is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy.

Please help keep SumOfUs strong by chipping in $3 or become a SumOfUs core member with a regular monthly donation.

Set up a monthly donation Chip in $3 instead This email was sent to peterbnyc@gmail.com. | Unsubscribe