Julian Walker-Palin

Representative & Facilitator, Retailers’ Palm Oil Group

Julian Walker-Palin represents the Retailers’ Palm Oil Group (RPOG), a non-competitive coalition of retail companies with the common aim of promoting the adoption of sustainable palm oil.

After legal training he joined Tesco and worked for nearly 10 years across legal, property, corporate responsibility and corporate affairs. Before he left, he was responsible for local communications and policy across much of the UK.

In 2007, he joined Walmart as Head of Corporate Sustainability, Asda, and for 7 years was their European sustainability leader. He led global activity for Walmart including creating and managing the team responsible for the transition to sustainable palm oil and attended multiple RSPO meetings, including delivering a plenary speech at RT10.

He left to set up ETANTE Ltd, a sustainability consultancy that supports many global brands and retailers. He helped create the Cerrado Manifesto Statement of Support group to de-couple deforestation from increased soy and cattle production in Brazil’s Cerrado and is responsible for global engagement of demand companies under the Collaboration for Forests and Agriculture project.