Online Public Relations Thoughts

 Child labor in the palm oil industry has become a crisis for the Girl Scouts.  Palm oil is used in Girl Scout cookies and not all of it comes from plantations with sustainable practices and use of only adult labor.  On the one hand, there are tens of thousands of young women selling cookies in the US.  On the other hand, there are 10-year-olds cutting their hands as they gather the sharp-edged fruit in Indonesia.  The Girl Scouts so far appear to have ducked the issue and pointed inquiries to the cookie producers.  That is a PR faux pas.  The right thing to do is to take public responsibility and work to ameliorate the problem.  Sooner or later, if palm oil remains a hot button, the Girl Scouts will be compelled to act.  By then, it will be too late for their reputation.  The organization is beset with problems these days and might consider palm oil just one more headache to endure.  Probably the largest pain for the nonprofit is the Boy Scouts decision to admit girls to their ranks.  The Girl Scouts have sued the Boy Scouts, and cookies seem to be an after-thought.