Social media can help save the planet, according to Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo who has been speaking about the organisation’s campaign to stop Nestlé from sourcing palm oil from plantations that are causing deforestation.

Speaking to CNN, Naidoo said he believes that social media is such a  powerful tool because it not only was key to the impact of Greenpeace’s recent anti-Nestlé activism, but once the rancour had subsided, enabled it to enter into a dialogue with the FMCG giant.

In March, Greenpeace launched a mock Kit-Kat (a Nestlé brand) ad in which the chocolate fingers of the bar were replaced with literal fingers – those of an orang-utan. As the consumer in the film bit into them, they bled. Nestlé is killing orang-utans by destroying their habitat, was the message.

Palm oil is used by corporations across the globe – not just Nestlé–  in an array of consumer products, including chocolate, detergent and soaps.  Greenpeace argues that in order to fulfil demand, companies such as Nestlé are clearing virgin forest to make space for palm plantations.

Of course Nestlé, in its big bullying way, tried to get the video banned, citing copyright infringement. But that just led to more publicity for Greenpeace and undoubtedly just convinced more people of Nestlé’s culpability.

The video got more than 1m views. And angry consumers targeted Nestle’s Twitter page and Facebook pages demanding the firm stop sourcing its palm oil irresponsibly. And it worked.

Nestlé responded by ceasing business with one of its suppliers – Sinas Mas, a company that Greenpeace identified as causing deforestation in Indonesia.

The corporation also wrote to Greenpeace earlier this month (and posted an open letter on its website), stressing its ‘green’ credentials, committing to only using palm oil sourced responsibly by 2015 and pledging not to work with suppliers that use oil from non-sustainable sources.

Naidoo was as impressed by social media’s ability to reach consumers as he was by its ability to enable Greenpeace engage in a dialogue with Nestlé. He has vowed that Greenpeace will try to maintain that approach – rather than just attack its targets, the campaigning body will strive to enter into conversations with them.

Naidoo said: “We’ve got lots of dialogue going on with a range of companies. Even with Nestlé we had been talking with them, but if talk does not deliver the results, we have to create the possibility for millions of people who care about the environment to send a clear message.

“Those [companies] that don’t have products that are sold to the public, the challenge there is slightly different, but when you have a company that sells a product directly to the global public you have a greater ability to leverage things more quickly.”

And that’s the beauty of social media – it can be an excellent form of communication:  a word often misused by marketers and PR executives to convey what is effectively the bombardment of consumers with ‘messages’.

But this instance ‘communication’ can be applied in the true sense of the word: social media had Greenpeace, its supporters, consumers and Nestlé engaging in an open debate and actually bringing about change.