Grand Rapids environmental advocates join fellow lobbyists against Kellogg's Corporation

As overcast skies darkened the Festival Market Square in Battle Creek, Grand Rapids environmental advocacy groups and community members joined over 80 others from across Michigan to rally at the Kellogg’s Corporate Headquarters. The groups banded together as part of Forest Heroes, a Michigan based environmental advocacy group that is lobbying Kellogg’s to use its influence as a joint venture with Asian agribusiness and palm oil giant, Wilmar International, to cease its destructive palm oil practices in South East Asia.

Wilmar International’s sustainability track record has raised serious concern over the production of palm oil and the negative effects it is having on the environment in South East Asia. It is reported that palm oil production is causing wide spread deforestation, pollution and severe encroachment on the surviving 400 Sumatran Tigers’ and other jungle creatures’ habitat. Forest Hereos has led the charge in reminding Kellogg's to help save their beloved mascot from extinction. 

“West Michigan is recognized globally for its contributions to building the sustainable business movement. Corporate leaders like Steelcase, Herman Miller and Cascade Engineering have all served as corporate leaders paving the way to a balanced triple bottom line,” said Rachel Hood, the Executive Director for the Grand Rapids based West Michigan Environmental Action Council, in a speech held at the rally.

“We are all West Michigan and having a company so close to home that is involved in these practices is unacceptable. We’ve received an outpouring of support in Grand Rapids from Ben Cushing’s efforts,” she added, following the rally.

Cushing, the Grand Rapids Community Organizer for Forest Heroes, has organized the community to contribute to the activists, 5,000 petitions and sign-on letter, from 100 leading community organizations, businesses, university and faith groups from across the state. These were all dumped into a large cereal bowl, complete with spoon, and delivered to Kellogg’s Vice President of Sustainability, Diane Holdorf. The local branch of Forest Heroes collected over 1,500 petitions and drew the support of dozens volunteers from the Grand Rapids area alone.

“I think that the community support that has been outpouring, the petitions and people showing up at a rally like this really does show Kellogg’s that the pressure is on and that people are paying attention,” said Cushing as various groups from Grand Rapids donned Tiger suits and picked up signs to join with others from across the state.

Several key environmental and sustainability organizations from Grand Rapids including WMEAC, Land Conservancy of West Michigan, Slow Food West Michigan, Greater Grand Rapids Food Systems Council, Aquinas Students Striving for Sustainability and Calvin Environmental Stewardship Coalition joined the cause and signed the letter delivered to Kellogg’s Ms. Holdorf.

“We decided to support Forest Heroes because we feel very strongly about sustainability/ecological issues in the food system, and although Kellogg's has been excellent on such issues so far, especially locally, we were surprised to learn that they had partnered with such a bad actor,” said Cynthia Price, the Chair of the Greater Grand Rapids Food Systems Council, a nonprofit group dedicated to building and developing sustainable food systems. “We feel that holding corporations responsible for their actions is a definitive way to make progress in reforming the food system in terms of the environment and social justice.”

Students from several Grand Rapids universities were present at the rally. “Grand Rapids is such an up and moving town. There are so many people and organizations that are interested and caring about these issues,” said Kristina Raiz, an officer for the Students Striving for Sustainability group at Aquinas University.

"I think there was some level of disagreement on how much power Kellogg’s had to move Wilmar forward. I think that these were good steps forward ultimately and it is a good sign that Kellogg’s was so willing to be transparent,” said Ms. Hood following a closed meeting with Kellogg’s officials and select environmental advocates from across the state. The rally continued past the meeting and into the afternoon.