New tool gives shoppers option to buy products made using ethical palm oil

With the aim to help people shop sustainably on major eCommerce sites, People's Movement to Stop Haze, a Singapore-based non-profit and advertising agency Havas Group have launched a new online shopping tool that allows online shoppers to identify items that use sustainability produced palm oil.

The tool named EcoCart is a Google Chrome 'plugin' gives Singaporeans the option of buying products made using ethical palm oil. Powered by data from Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a global watchdog with more than 4,000 members including producers, traders, buyers and green groups and other NGOs, users will now be informed of better choices when the products they select have been produced with unsustainable palm oil.

The RSPO, which is backed by the World Wildlife Fund and other NGOs, sets varying levels of sustainability criteria that members must meet to certify their oil; the most stringent level involves ensuring it is separated from the rest and can be traced to a single certified source.

The first of its kind to be built and launched, according to PM Haze, the tool has a target of getting Singaporeans to make 500,000 'switches' by the end of 2019 and hopes to expand it to identify other ethically produced goods if successful. Globally, consumers and retailers are demanding more information about what they procure, buy and eat, to ensure its production and transportation does not damage the environment or use illegal and unethical business practices.

"There are millions of products out there and it's virtually impossible to log every single one of them. But the important thing is this provides a potential avenue for people to realize what products are sustainably produced or responsibly sourced," Benjamin Tay, executive director of PM Haze told Reuters.

People's Movement to Stop Haze, known as PM Haze, is a non-profit focusing on outreach, research and advocacy on the transboundary haze crisis. Co-founded by Tan Yihan, an ordinary Singaporean who witnessed Malaysian farmer's fight against peat fires in 2014, PM Haze is all about taking collective action to stop the environmental destruction that causes haze.