An environmental group plans to hold a demonstration in front of Imperium Renewables’ Seattle headquarters next Thursday over its possible use of southeast Asian palm oil.
The Seattle group, One Earth, said in a notice sent to the Seattle P-I that Imperium’s use of imported palm oil is “destructive to the Earth.”
Imperium spokesman John Williams was not aware of the protest and declined to comment.
If the protest materializes, it could be bad timing for Imperium. The heavily funded Seattle company plans to open its 100-million-gallon Grays Harbor County biodiesel plant this month. It is also waiting to go public, having filed to raise up to $345 million.
Protesters showing up on a company’s doorstep can scare off potential investors.
In fact, Imperium mentioned in its IPO filing that shifting public opinion about the use of palm oil — one of several feedstocks it is considering at Grays Harbor — could damage its business.
“Unfavorable public opinions concerning the use of palm oil, soybeans and other feedstock, or negative publicity arising from such use, could reduce the global supply of such feedstock, increase our production costs and reduce the global demand for biodiesel, any of which could harm our business and adversely affect our financial condition,” the company wrote.
Imperium is a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and has pledged to use oil that is harvested in an eco-friendly manner.
But Duff Badgley of One Earth said sustainable palm oil production is not working. “The proof is the continuing rampant rain forest destruction in Malaysia and Indonesia caused by palm plantations,” he said.
Badgley, who says the organization has about 100 people on its e-mail recipient list, plans to show up with large banners and signs. In an e-mail, he called the use of palm oil-based biodiesel a “global shame” and an “eco-catastrophe.”
“We hope to start the dialogue, already well under way in Europe, about the non-sustainability on large-scale biofuels, of any kind. They either take the forests, or they take the food,” he said.
UPDATE: The European Union’s trade commissioner this week said that demand for biofuels could lead developing countries to destroy rain forests in order to meet production needs.
“We can’t allow the switch to biofuels to become an environmentally unsustainable stampede in the developing world,” EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said at a conference in Brussels, according to Bloomberg News. “Europeans won’t pay a premium for biofuels if the ethanol in their car is produced unsustainably by systematically burning fields after harvests. Or if it comes at the expense of rainforests.”