European palm oil importers are unlikely to be able to ensure that the products they sell are "deforestation-free" by the self-imposed goal of 2020, according to analysis by the Palm Oil Transparency Coalition. While about 98 percent of the palm oil imported into Europe by the survey respondents can be traced to the mill it came from, thanks to efforts by producers, only about a third can be traced to the plantation it came from, the report said. That makes it hard to determine if third-party suppliers had destroyed forests to grow palm trees or if they used child or forced labour at some point in the supply chain. Few companies that participated in the study said that audits or reviews were taking place in their supply chains beyond those carried out by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an industry group that includes producers and buyers and oversees the sustainability of the product. Only about 19 percent of global palm oil is certified sustainable by these standards.

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