Nestle Meets Greenpeace’s Demands Following Social Media Backlash


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Nestle Meets Greenpeace’s Demands Following Social Media Backlash

Today Nestle announced a “zero deforestation” policy in partnership with The Forest Trust (TFT), which will initially focus on amending its palm oil purchasing practices. The move follows a full blown Facebook attack initiated by Greenpeace earlier this year.

Eight weeks ago, Greenpeace UK released a provocative YouTube video calling into question Nestle’s methods for acquiring palm oil. Greenpeace claims that the company’s practices contribute to rainforest deforestation and used YouTube as a platform to shock viewers with a video that likens eating a Kit Kat to eating an orangutan (the graphic video is embedded below).

The video caught the attention of Nestle, who had it removed from YouTube and consequently incited Greenpeace to rally the troops to call, send emails and leave chastising comments on Nestle’s Facebook Page. The situation created by the cacophony of updates worsened after a Nestle representative threatened to delete any comments by users whose profile pics included an altered version of the Nestle logo.

What followed is quite remarkable from a social media standpoint, and has much to do with Nestle’s more aggressive plan to alter its palm oil practices. Greenpeace U.K. touts, “With nearly 1.5 million views of our Kit Kat advert, over 200,000 emails sent, hundreds of phone calls and countless Facebook comments, you made it clear to Nestle that it had to address the problems with the palm oil and paper products it buys.”

Nestle is most certainly changing its tune, and its par...

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