PALM OIL
Palm oil. Have you heard about it? Surprisingly not many have, and even fewer know about the significant negative impacts this industry is having on the planet. But you're in the right place to find out exactly how you can reduce this impact through important personal life choices. And what's even more essential is that you communicate what you have learnt to others.
The more we know, the more we can do about it.
What is palm oil?
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the pulp of the palm fruit that is found on the African and American oil palm tree. Indonesia is its largest producer with an average annual output of more than 20 million tonnes.
You will find palm oil in pretty much everything, from margarine and chocolate to soaps, cosmetics, toothpaste, and fuel for transport and power plants. This natural resource is popular for many reasons; it has great cooking properties, its smooth texture makes it a perfect cooking ingredient, its a natural preservative and its the highest yielding vegetable oil crop. The demand for palm oil is increasing, yet its necessity in the world on a scale this large is debatable.
Peel back the label yourself, and find out why palm oil is used in so many products
Why is it bad news?
Impacts the
environment
Deforestation
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According to the WWF, 300 football fields of forest are removed on average every hour for palm oil plantations
Burning resources
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Burning of the invaluable timber during deforestation produces more carbon emissions than burning fossil fuels alone, making Indonesia the third highest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.
Fuel
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Palm oil-based biofuels have three times the climate impact than traditional fossil fuels
Impacts the
people
Lost homes
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Indigenous people are often driven from their land to make way for plantations
Exploited human rights
Workers experience violation of their human rights, often with links to child labour
Lack of choice
Communities are often forced to work as plantation workers where they are usually exploited and only big corporations receive the benefits
Impacts the
animals
Deforestation
Removal of habitat is pushing animals closer to extinction due to increased vulnerability to poachers combined with a lack of food and shelter
Animals at risk
Fewer than 50,000 orangutans live today and are predicted to become extinct in the wild within the next 5-10 years if nothing changes
Other animal extinctions
Species such as the Borneo elephant and Sumatran tiger are also critically endangered
How can I help?
You might think that the best way to reduce your contribution to any of these negative impacts is to avoid palm oil altogether. Well unfortunately that would be almost impossible as nearly everything you use in your day to day life will contain it.
Plus if palm oil was replaced by another vegetable oil, this would create even larger environmental and social problems. For example, soybean or sunflower plantations demand a higher land usage and larger resource requirements, whilst the removal of palm oil plantations would result in severe poverty crashes for many reliant families and farmers.
Of course, by reducing your palm oil investment, this will be beneficial in many respects. However you should only boycott unsustainable palm oil and invest in the sustainable stuff!
Sustainability is key!
The RSPO
The RSPO
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is a not-for-profit organisation that unites seven different sectors of the palm oil industry to try and develop methods and produce agreements for the global standards of sustainable palm oil. These include groups such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like WWF who are interested in wildlife and environmental conservation, as well as the retailers and investors who prioritise profits and efficiency.
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The RSPO has created a set of criteria that companies must abide by to be certified sustainable. This helps to minimise the negative impacts of the palm oil industry both environmentally and socially.
According to the RSPO, sustainable palm oil should:
Fulfill increasing global food demands
Support affordable food prices
Safeguard social interests, communities and workers
Support poverty reduction
Protect the environment and wildlife
A summary of the RSPO guidelines and principles
Feel free to watch this video if you would like an easy summary of the RSPO principles in slightly more detail (and with pretty pictures!). I found it very informative and it quickly helped me to develop on my palm oil knowledge.
Sustainable brands and companies
The easiest way to identify if a product has been produced using sustainable palm oil is to look out for the RSPO logo. However, I rarely see this logo when I do my food shopping. So to make things a bit easier, I've put together a summary of retailers, manufacturers and food services rated by the WWF who work closely with the RSPO.
Find my simplified scorecards by clicking on the links below or feel free to check out WWF’s scorecard system here.
Remember, you don't have to avoid palm oil, you just need to boycott the unsustainable stuff!
Rating the Companies
It can all get a bit complicated when trying to rate these companies but I’ll try to make it as simple as possible.
The 'Book and Claim' System
Most companies are RSPO members, but this is not enough. They must source a very high percentage of certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO) to be deemed progressive. This certification is obtained through GreenPalm via a method called a “book and claim” system which certifies that their sourcing of palm oil is sustainable. However this can be combined with unsustainable palm oil along the journey due to unreliable tracking. Essentially the end product is a mixed bag and honestly, this isn’t good enough.
So let's be more sustainable!
The 'Segregated' System
Companies can shift this method towards something much more reliable known as the “segregated” system where certified palm oil is kept separate and can be effectively tracked from growth all the way to manufacture. This is the best possible sourcing for sustainable palm oil. The scoring system I have provided gives an indication of a company’s progress in using solely segregated suppliers.