Palm Oil

Learn why palm oil production is so destructive to tropical forests and what its consequences are. Native to West Africa, palm oil trees grow in wet tropical environments. They are highly productive and live up to thirty years. Palm fruit is versatile. It produces cooking oil. It is used in processed foods as an additive. Nearly half of the world’s population consumes palm oil as part of their diet. Palm oil’s fat content can reach 40 percent and is linked to cardiovascular disease. Palm oil production is a major cause of deforestation and habitat destruction in Malaysia and Indonesia, contributing to climate change. Palm tree plantations are ruining some of the most biologically diverse places on earth. See Tropical Forests Nexus and Degraded Land Restoration Nexus.

• Palm oil is found in 50 percent of consumer products, including many organic ones, and is used in industrial processes.
• Palm oil production involves clearing forests mechanically, burning downed trees and debris, draining carbon-rich peat lands, and planting trees as a monoculture. Palm kernels are processed in a mill to generate the oil.
• Palm oil devastates wildlife habitat. A site of significant destruction is Borneo, home to one of the world’s most biologically diverse rainforests. A planned highway by the Indonesian government will pierce the heart of Borneo, opening the rainforest for palm oil plantations on ancestral Dayak land. Local Indigenous leaders in Borneo have protested.
• Palm oil is cheap to produce and cheap to process into additives. Its low cost contributes to its dominance in the marketplace.
• When the scientific consensus against trans fat emerged in the 1990s, palm oil was embraced as a preferred alternative. It replaced animal fat in many household products, including soap and shampoo. As a result, between 1995 and 2015, the annual production of palm oil quadrupled.
• Production is expanding into Africa, Latin America, and the Amazon basin.
• More than 60% of the global demand for palm oil comes from Asia.
• The palm oil industry is opaque. On-the-ground monitoring is infrequent. Product traceability often only goes back to palm oil mills, not the farms. Enforcement of laws and regulations to curtail environmental damage is spotty or nonexistent. 
• The industry is powerful and intimidating. Its lobbying and public relations tactics have been compared to the tobacco industry.
• Palm oil trees can grow in marginal soils and on hillslopes, often leading to soil erosion, especially when forests are being cleared.
• Palm oil plantations sometimes are established in the wake of industrial logging activities, linking the oil to wood products created by deforestation.
• Many tropical forest wildlife species cannot survive in open agroforests, or monoculture plantations.
• Discharge from a palm oil mill can cause freshwater pollution that affects people and wildlife downstream.
• New roads and settlements encourage the poaching of wildlife and birds, including the critically endangered Helmeted Hornbill.
• Palm oil production was a major cause of record fires in Indonesia in 2019, causing a variety of serious environmental impacts.
• Palm oil production sometimes involves child labor.
• Palm oil can be used as a biofuel, but when the environmental damage caused by converting tropical forests to a palm oil plantation is factored in, palm oil biodiesel generates more greenhouse gas emissions than an equivalent amount of fossil fuel.
• In 2019, the European Union decided to phase out the use of palm oil in transportation by 2030, no longer considering it to be a renewable fuel source.
• Historically, palm oil has a close relationship with European colonialism and economic imperialism.

Join a campaign that targets corporations and governments involved in destructive palm oil production and use. Palm oil production operated out of the public eye for years. However, campaigns by local activists, conservation organizations, and governments shined spotlights on the damage caused by the palm oil industry. In 2004, a coalition of businesses formed the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to certify less destructive practices. In 2018, the group was pressured again to toughen its standards. International pressure has been brought to bear on nations to enforce their laws. Pressure is building on the Indonesian government to extend a ban on new palm oil plantations. (See Key Players below.) Campaigns include:

• Here is Rainforest Action Network’s anti-deforestation campaign, their Take Action campaign, and their blog about helping Indigenous peoples in Indonesia.
• Palm Oil Investigations has partnered with the Orangutan Project.
• World Wildlife Fund’s Voice for the Planet is calling for urgent action.
• Greenpeace/Indonesian Palm Oil and Peatlands campaign.
• Here is a list of rainforest protection petitions in various languages.
• A Girl Scout troop boycotted selling cookies over palm oil use.

Demand accountability and sustainability in retail palm oil products. Although the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) provides a seal that tells buyers whether products have met its standards, a recent analysis has cast doubt on whether the standards are actually meaningful. There are other certification standards, including the International Palm Oil Free Trademark and one by the Orangutan Alliance. The Palm Oil Innovation Group is a multistakeholder group of NGOs and companies.

• Food brands are failing to live up to promises to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains and products.
• Shoppers should study the ingredient list on their favorite food or household product to determine if it contains palm oil.
• Scorecards on companies are available from the Rainforest Action Network, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the World Wildlife Fund.
• Here is a report (2020) by the World Wildlife Fund that compares the record of companies against their pledges to buy responsibly produced palm oil.
• Here is a similar report from Greenpeace International.
• Here is a report by Conservation International on sustainable palm oil.
• Accountability Framework Initiative (AFi) is a collaboration of conservation groups, including the National Wildlife Federation, the Rainforest Alliance, the Nature Conservancy, and others, to build and scale up ethical supply chains for forest products.
• Check the rankings of companies most responsible for tropical forest destruction in general before buying a product. This organization ranks companies on their impacts.
• Here is a comprehensive list of cruelty-free (no animal testing) brands.

Buy products that either deliberately exclude palm oil as an ingredient or contain responsibly sourced palm oil, even though they can cost more. Consumers can help by avoiding products that contain commodity palm oil and by being willing to pay a premium price for responsibly produced oil.

• Many types of highly processed food contain palm oil. Avoiding these foods will reduce your exposure to palm oil and improve your health.
• Palm oil is listed or included under many different names on products. Names to watch out for: palmate, palmitate, palm olein, glyceryl, stearate, stearic acid, Ellis guineensis, palmitic acid, palm stearine, palmitoyl oxostearamide, and palmitoyl tetrapeptide-3.
• Here is a list of brands in the UK that score poorly for their use of palm oil.
• Here is a list of the types of self-care, household, and medicinal products that have palm oil.
• Products Without Palm Oil is a website that lists a variety of certified food, products, and recipes that do not contain palm oil. It also discusses allergies connected to the oil.
• The International Palm Oil Free Certification Trademark program is a nonprofit organization that certifies palm-oil-free products, identified by its trademark. Here is its Facebook page.
• Here is a guide to palm oil-free products from the Orangutan Foundation.
• Palm Done Right is a network of companies that grow and use organic, deforestation-free palm oil. Here is a list of their brand partners, including Dr. Bronner’s, Jovial, Pacha, Grove, and many more.
• The company Natural Habitats sells certified organic palm oil products from smallholder farms in Ecuador.
• Nutiva makes a certified organic, fairfair-tradeadorian Red Palm Oil.
• Daabon produces certified organic palm oil from its farm in Colombia.

Reduce your consumption of all tropical forest-based commodities. We should reduce the consumption of all commodities produced from tropical forests, including cattle, soy, and wood (timber and pulp). Reducing consumer demand for these products will lower the pressure on tropical forests and allow them to be protected and regenerated. See Tropical Forests Nexus.

Make a donation to an organization that protects and restores tropical forests and supports the rights of Indigenous peoples. Nongovernmental organizations play a critical role in the defense of tropical forests and Indigenous peoples around the world. Many of them work closely with Indigenous peoples and local communities to protect forests. Supporting these organizations with a donation or membership is vital to their success. (See Key Players below.)

Join a social media site run by an advocate for tropical forests. A sampling of social media sites:

• Rainforest Action Network on Facebook and X
• Rainforest Trust on Facebook and X
• Orangutan Foundation on Facebook and X

Find ways to stop destroying rainforests. Palm oil companies, including farmers and processors, must meet future demand without further forest and ecosystem destruction, particularly intact, high-carbon, primary (old-growth) forests. The expansion of palm oil plantations into secondary forests or other low-carbon areas needs to be done sustainably or curtailed. Strategies include:

• Decommodifying production, including the use of regenerative agroforestry practices such as those used by Indigenous peoples, which offer cost-effective, environmentally friendly ways to produce palm oil. Here is an article on palm oil agroforestry. Here is an article on palm oil production in Gabon. Here is an article by the Center for International Forestry Research about palm oil and agroforestry.
• Increasing productivity (yield) on existing palm oil farms and plantations. Recent plant science is working to triple the yield of oil per hectare through plant breeding, better land management, and increased mechanization.
• Genomic research is identifying genetic signatures and microbial suites associated with the traits of high-yielding palm oil plants. They are being isolated so they can be transferred into new generations of trees (via seed coatings, for instance), increasing yields without requiring additional land.
• Sustainably intensify the production of smallholder farms. Typically, they reach only 50 percent of their potential yield. Through the implementation of best management practices, it is projected that smallholders could supply up to 71 percent of Indonesia’s palm oil production.

Produce food and other goods that meet consumer demand for sustainably grown palm oil. (See Individuals above.)

• Here is a study of the added value possibilities for palm oil grown and processed in West Africa.

Restore degraded rainforest. Passive restoration is simple and low cost. It focuses on releasing land from unsustainable use through protective measures that allow natural regeneration and succession. Active restoration involves planting and cultivating native seedlings as well as removing invasive species. Both can increase the quantity of carbon sequestration, though active restoration does so more quickly. Active restoration is usually employed in areas where the soil has been severely degraded and where natural seedbanks are not present. See Degraded Land Restoration Nexus.

• One of the biggest palm oil growers in Indonesia has announced a plan to rehabilitate an area half the size of New York City.

Be accountable. Companies that manufacture products containing palm oil or are involved in the processing, trading, and supply of palm oil need to abide by robust, verifiable, mandatory standards for responsible sourcing and production, including the cessation of rainforest conversion and destruction. These standards must become policies, and companies must require their partners and suppliers to adhere to them. Companies need to make time-bound commitments and stick to their promises.

• Ensure traceability beyond the oil mill to the source farm or plantation in order to monitor and mitigate environmental and social risks and ensure that raw materials are not contributing to tropical deforestation. This would send a strong signal to the palm oil marketplace.
• Embrace transparency by reporting on palm oil sources and usage, as well as progress on company pledges and goals annually. Utilize new technology, including satellite monitoring of plantations and deforestation.
• Ensure commitments and actions cover the entire corporate group, apply to all countries in which the company operates, and covers all the types of palm oil used.
• Invest in projects on the ground that support the conservation and restoration of rainforests and support smallholder farmers.
• Support policy action that stops deforestation and create legislation requiring legal and sustainable palm oil production.
• End the use of palm oil in animal feed and pet food.

Consider using alternate vegetable oils. Properties similar to palm oil can be created by partially hydrogenating and blending oils from shea, sal, jojoba, kokum, illipé, jatropha, and mango kernels. These plants can be grown regeneratively as part of agroforestry projects.

Support the development and use of synthetic palm oil as a replacement for rainforest-derived oil. Technological advances in genetics and microbial manufacture in laboratory settings have allowed the creation of synthetic oil with a chemical profile identical to palm oil. The effort has drawn financial support and interest from European suppliers of palm oil. Researchers at the University of Bath in the U.K. and the Technical University of Munich are developing synthetic palm oil that bypasses the need for land-based feedstock, such as sugar derived from sugarcane. According to Bonsucro, a nonprofit organization that certifies environmentally friendly sugarcane, less than 5 percent of the sugar worldwide is grown sustainably. Economic challenges to synthetic palm oil include cost and scaling up to meet potential commercial demand. Companies developing synthetic palm oil include:

• Xylome, based in Wisconsin.
• c16 Biosciences, based in New York.
• Kiverdi, based in California.

In the Land of Palm Oil Documentary by Denise Dragiewicz (77 mins.)

Why Palm Oil Is So Cheap by Business Insider (7 mins.)

Why Palm Is in Everything, and Why That’s Bad by Adam Ragusea (16 mins.)

The Devastating Effects of the World’s Palm Oil Addiction by Journeyman Pictures (33 mins.)

Poverty and Palm Oil are Driving Deforestation in Indonesia by VICE Asia (13 mins.)

Palm Oil is Devastation the Rainforest (with Dr. Jane Goodall) by LIVEKINDLY (15 mins.)

Palm Oil Production Process (in Nigeria) by Nature Sounds (15 mins.)

Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything—and Endangered the World by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman / New Press

Rainforest Deforestation News from Mongabay

Rainforest Action Network’s Archive on Palm Oil

News from The Center for Sustainable Palm Oil Studies