Organising for sustainable palm oil consumption: a market-based approach

Abstract

This article explores how sustainable-oriented changes in food consumption are intertwined in dispersed movements of material and immaterial entities in both markets and society. The adoption of the notion of agencement offers the potential to consider the complexity of consumption from a market perspective: turning away from the simple, traditional production–consumers opposition approach and highlighting the performative character of the links between elements at play. Consequently, consumption becomes a market-wide issue rather than one relating to neither consumers alone nor just supplier–consumer exchange. Our analysis, with the focus on the attempts by various players in the market to configure and reconfigure a sustainable form of (non-)palm oil consumption, brings us to reflect on the development of arrangements over time and movement in consumption. This leads in conclusion, in order to appropriately capture the above-mentioned phenomena, to the proposal of the notion of multiplex consumption.

Keywords:

• sustainable consumption
• food consumption
• multiplex consumption
• agencement
• performativity
• palm oil

Acknowledgements

This research was performed in the context of the Sustainable Sourcing in the Network Environment research chair at KEDGE Business School (www.kedgebs.com/fr/chaires/la-chaire-achats-durables-et-socialement-responsables). We extend our thanks to the founder members of the research chair who actively contributed to this project.

Notes

1. Commonly named “Nutella tax” because of the high content in palm oil in the nut spread, the law proposed to impose a 300% tax increase on palm oil.

2. See discussion on the RSPO later in the text.

3. The identification of HCV areas is based on six criteria: (1) a significant concentration of biodiversity; (2) large landscapes ecosystem; (3) rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems; (4) areas that provide basic services of nature; (5) areas fundamental to meeting the basic needs of local communities; and (6) sites of cultural importance (WWF).

4. These include: palm oil producers, palm oil processors or traders, consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, banks and investors, environmental or nature conservation NGOs and social/societal or developmental NGOs.

5. A Green Palm certificate is assigned to producers for each tonne of sustainable palm oil produced. Certificates can be sold to manufacturers and retailers who can then claim to have supported the sustainable production of palm oil, even if they did not purchase RSPO certified oil.