Myth: Palm oil is all bad!

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We hear a lot about how palm oil is bad for the environment, through deforestation and pollution, and there are

several movements out there that try to boycott palm oil.  Whether palm oil is bad is actually a tricky one to answer. 

Let’s look at some different facts about palm oil, and how it affects the environment.

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What is palm oil?

The fruit of oil palm trees is used to make an edible vegetable oil.  This is used in numerous different products such

as confectionery, margarine, shampoo, and cleaning products, and is present in up to 50% products in the

average supermarket. 42 countries produce palm oil, with India and Malaysia making up 85% of the global supply.

 

Why is palm oil so widespread?

Out of all of the vegetable oil crops, palm oil is the highest yielding.  It is incredibly efficient, supplying 35% of the world’s vegetable oil on only 10% of the land used for oil crops.  Per unit area, oil palm produces up to 9x more oil than other vegetable crops (Meijaard et al., 2018). This means switching to an alternative oil would use a lot more land, increasing deforestation and pollution associated with vegetable oil plantations.

 

Another reason it is widespread is the versatility of the oil itself.  It is semi-solid at room temperature so works well in spreads, and can be present in products in either a solid or a liquid form.  It is resistant to oxidation; a natural preservative effect that increases the shelf life of consumable products.  Another attraction is that it is odourless and colourless, so does not alter the taste or visual appeal of food products.

 

We’ve seen what’s good, what is the negative press surrounding palm oil?

The unsustainable production of palm oil is a huge problem in places such as Borneo and Sumatra, where destruction to forests and wildlife is only increasing with more trees being planted with the increasing demand for palm oil.  Wildlife affected includes orangutans, tigers, elephants, and rhinos, but in total 193 critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable species are impacted on a global scale (Meijaard et al., 2018).

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The loss of forests coupled with the conversion of carbon rich peat soils to palm oil plantations result in huge sources of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change.  Rainforests’ soils hold ~45% of the world’s terrestrial carbon, so at the rate of deforestation, you can see why this is a big problem.

 

How palm oil affects the lives of locals

There are also plantations that exploit their workers and use child labour, which are serious issues that the palm oil sector needs to address.  However boycotting palm oil is not the solution. There are around 4 million people in rural Indonesia that depend on palm oil for their livelihoods and approximately 17 million people earn income in the industry.

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There is a positive impact on local communities, as businesses put money into the local economy which helps towards education, healthcare, and food.  They build roads and infrastructure, connecting more communities – however often these are just mud paths.

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Boycotting is not the answer, so what alternatives are there?

The main solution is producing sustainable palm oil.  Plantations are audited and certified against the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil standard), an independent standard who were established in 2004.   Their sustainability criteria relate to social, environmental, and economic good practice.  There are 8 principles:

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Environmentally, this means that farmers are not allowed to burn land to clear it, and potential new land is assessed for its carbon stock and conservation value before new plantations can be developed.  Palm oil companies have promised no deforestation, no peat development, and no exploitation of workers.  The policies are applied all the way up the supply chain.  The RSPO certification means that the products on the supermarket shelves show the sustainable palm oil trade mark where sustainable palm oil has been used, either in full or in part.

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To conclude, we have seen the positives of using palm oil as a vegetable oil, coupled with the environmental and social impacts of it being farmed unsustainably.  There are different views from different organisations about the viability of sustainable palm oil. The emphasis on this post is more to inform the reader so they can make their own decisions.

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Extra links:

https://www.chesterzoo.org/what-you-can-do/our-campaigns/sustainable-palm-oil/what-is-palm-oil/

https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/8-things-know-about-palm-oil

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References:

Meijaard, E. et al. (eds.) (2018). Oil palm and biodiversity. A situation analysis by the IUCN Oil Palm Task Force. IUCN Oil Palm Task Force Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.