For the longest time, I boycotted palm oil. Palm oil is notorious for destroying the habitats of wildlife, especially endangered orangutans. Of course it makes sense not to support a product that is so environmentally destructive. This seems so easy and straightforward! But so much in conservation is not straightforward and I was pretty shocked to find out that what I was doing could actually be worse for wildlife.
This blog post outlines my thought process leading to that decision and provides you with resources to make your own. Not all conservationists agree with me, and when I posted about this on Instagram and Twitter, I did get some pushback.
Why is Palm Oil Bad for the Environment?
I recently went to Borneo, Malaysia and saw the palm oil plantations for myself. I visited a rainforest reserve called Deramakot, home to orangutans, clouded leopards, and gibbons. On the way to the reserve, we saw miles and miles of palm oil plantations.
Basically, the palm oil industry clear cuts primary forests for palm oil plantations thereby removing habitat for endangered species like orangutans. Where once stood forests, now stands monocultures of palm oil trees.
The palm oil tree is actually native to Africa, but most of the world’s supply (~85%) is grown in Malaysia and Indonesia, which is why orangutans have become an iconic species representing the destruction of this cash crop. Orangutans need forests with old trees. They build their nests and are adapted to living their lives high up in the tress. They are the largest arboreal mammal.
Palm oil is not just bad for wildlife, it’s bad for the whole planet. To clear the land for plantations, the rainforest is burned
Clearing land for palm oil plantations involves burning rainforest, which is obviously bad for wildlife, but ultimately bad for us too. Burning trees and peatland releases carbon in the atmosphere, which contributes to climate change. Not only does the burning release large amounts of carbon, but the loss of forest and peat also prevents carbon in the atmosphere from being absorbed. Both forests and peat are major carbon sinks.
Why Boycotting Palm Oil Won’t Work
Now that we know how bad palm oil is, our gut reaction is to never buy this awful thing again (that was definitely mine)!
Before my trip to Borneo, I was at the International Conference in Conservation Biology in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and met experts from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo who were at the conference to talk about palm oil. Before talking to them, I assumed that avoiding palm oil all together, or reducing your consumption, was the best thing that you could do, but they told me that was wrong. Here’s why:
1. Boycotting Palm Oil is Impossible for Most People
I tried to boycott palm oil for the longest time. For me, it was pretty easy because I don’t eat many processed foods. Or so I thought. But palm oil is in everything!
From cosmetics to ice cream to biodiesel and everything in between (I found out my skin care and makeup products contained palm oil). But I still thought I was doing good because these were the only palm oil products I thought I was using, and they are from a company that uses sustainable sourcing of ingredients.
What I didn’t realize is that palm oil could be called by so many other names! You can buy palm oil without even knowing it. Here’s a list of ingredients that come from palm oil:
Checking all of my products for these ingredient names would be extremely difficult and time-consuming for me – and I devote my whole career to nature and conservation. Even if everyday consumers had good intentions and want to avoid palm oil, this giant list makes it quite honestly, prohibitive. Palm oil really is in everything!
2: The Alternative to Palm Oil Could Be Much Worse
Say we do all join together and stop buying palm oil. This crop is no longer profitable, palm oil plantations go out of business, and people stop planting it, which means no more clearcutting of forests. This sounds amazing, except it’s not going to happen.
The reason why people cultivate palm oil in the first place is to make money. People in Indonesia and Malaysia need to make money to support their families and options for doing so are limited. They won’t just suddenly start protecting the forests, they are going to move on to the next crop that is profitable.
Despite palm oil’s bad rap, it has some advantages over other crops. Palm oil produces at least three times as much yield as any other crop while using fewer pesticides and chemical fertilizers than other vegetable oils.
This statistic sums it up pretty well: “Palm oil makes up 35% of all vegetable oils, grown on just 10% of the land allocated to oil crops.”
If palm oil is boycotted, global demand for an oil is not going to go down (remember that palm oil is in everything). Companies will need an alternative oil source, and this will result in MORE forest loss to plant these crops.
What Should You Do?
Buy Sustainable Palm Oil
There is an alternative – CSPO or Certified Sustainable Palm Oil. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil develops environmental and social criteria for companies to comply with to have CSPO. The World Wildlife Fund argues, that “when cultivated properly and planted in the right places, production of palm oil would not negatively impact the environment.”
CSPO palm oil has the following outcomes/requirements:
- Fair working conditions
- Protected land and rights for local people
- No clearing of primary forest
- Wildlife is protected on palm oil plantations
- Reduced greenhouse gas emissions
- Minimized industrial pollution
As of 2014, roughly 20% of all palm oil growers are certified, however, selling sustainable palm has been more challenging. Because palm oil is such a taboo ingredient due to its environmental destruction, companies are hesitant to draw attention to the fact that they use palm oil at all, even if it is sustainable. If the public is not actively looking for or demanding sustainable palm oil, companies are not going to pay the premium to get it, and this could increase demand for regular palm oil because realistically, most people will not boycott palm oil.
How Do I Buy Sustainable Palm Oil?
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Sustainable Palm Oil Shopping App
There are some great tools to help you determine if the companies that you shop from use CSPO. I’ve found that rarely is the RSPO logo on products. The first that I love is the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Palm Oil app. I use this ALL the time. This app is great because when you are in the grocery store you can check products before you put them in your cart.
To learn how to use the palm oil app, check out this video!
WWF’s Palm Oil Buyer’s Scorecard
Another great resource is WWF’s Palm Oil Buyer’s Scorecard. Like Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s app, you can search for your favorite brands and see how they rank.
If a company you love does not use RSPO, both the app and the website give you opportunities to pressure them to do so. The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo app has a sample letter that you can copy to send to companies and WWF’s website has a social share option so you can tweet their report and encourage them to switch to RSPO.
Arguments Against RSPO
It Doesn’t Go Far Enough
Some people are still not happy with RSPO and will not support it. They argue that there is no such thing as sustainable palm oil because even though wildlife and habitat is taken into account, forest is still destroyed, and it is still a monoculture plantation. Other concerns include that deforestation is only restricted to “high conservation value areas,” and palm oil that is still RSPO certified can be mixed with uncertified palm oil, yet the company can still get the certification.
Is There Evidence That it is Actually Better Than Uncertified Palm Oil?
Someone on my Twitter account doubted the actual impact of RSPO. He wrote:
And linked to this paper, which found no significant differences between RSPO and regular palm oil in relation to orangutan presence and fire (their measures of environmental sustainability. However, this study found that RSPO certification is associated with a significant decrease in deforestation, and this study found a decrease in fire incidence.
Also, although RSPO was started in 2003-2004, certifications for plantations actually didn’t start until 2009. Including deforestation and fires measures pre-2009 (pre-certification) is not a fair assessment of how well RSPO plantations perform.
Gemma Tillack wrote “Why ‘Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)’ palm oil is neither responsible nor sustainable,” but offers no solutions.
It’s Members Aren’t Sustainable
On my Instagram, someone commented “From what I’ve heard from places like Palm Oil Consumer Action is that the Chairs of the RSPO are companies like Nestle and Unilever, which use some of the most unsustainable palm out there. For me personally, my boycott is more of a stand against those companies that until they stop being so corrupt and become truly sustainable, I can’t buy anything RSPO certified when such high up members are not actually sustainable!
This is true that the companies that are members are not the most sustainable out there, however, I strongly believe in not letting progress be the enemy of perfection. In order to move forward with sustainability efforts, we need to include big companies to be effective. Otherwise, it won’t make that much of an impact for companies to actually want to buy it if it is too unattainable and the market will be so small. It’s already harder to sell sustainable palm oil.
It’s fine that you don’t want to support specific corporations because of your opinions on their company’s sustainability, however, I wouldn’t let that write off CSPO completely. And the only other options are boycotting palm oil, which is impossible for most people, which would then make CSPO less desirable, increasing the demand for regular palm oil, or alternative oils that use more land and do just as much environmental damage.
The RSPO is a non-profit organization that is made up of big companies, but it also includes conservation organizations that are compromising with companies to make them more sustainable. It may be less sustainable or slower progress that we like as conservationists, but it’s better than nothing. For more on the RSPO, check out this video:
I Support CSPO and Won’t Boycott Palm Oil
So, in an ideal world, we would save the forests and we wouldn’t need palm oil. But life doesn’t work that way. In my opinion, sustainable palm oil is the best answer to support people and wildlife.
Michelle Desilets’, Executive Director of the Orangutan Land Trust, sums this up well: …While no monoculture could ever be considered truly sustainable, I think we must consider that there is a spectrum of sustainability, and sustainable palm oil (for example that which is not grown as a result of forest clearance) is an infinitely better option than non-sustainable palm oil.
If you want to continue to improve your diet to make it more sustainable, check out “5 Easy Changes to Your Diet to Help the Planet.”
A big thank you to Chelsea Wellmer and Emmaline Repp-Maxwell of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for their help with great resources to write this blog post.
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Stephanie Schuttler is a wildlife biologist with 17 years of experience in mammal ecology and conservation, education, and outreach. Read her inspirational story, “My Unexpected Journey Into Science” to find out how she went from the daughter of a jeweler to a Ph.D. in wildlife biology. Feel free to contact Stephanie here.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/rape-abuses-palm-oil-fields-053102571.html
I was about to cite the same article. Even if the animals/planet are better off with CSPO, what about the treatment of women? As a woman, I find it impossible to support anything that disregards us as people with basic human rights.
This treatment of women is not specific to palm oil. If another oil replaced palm oil, I guarantee the same problems would happen – it’s not something inherent about palm oil. Human rights abuses happen across all types of products. I understand you do not want to support this industry, but you don’t have to avoid palm oil. Rather, the solution is to buy from companies that commit to ethical standards of sourcing. This is why I am an affiliate of Beautycounter – they are a certified B corporation makeup company, which independently rates corporations on sustainability and human rights among other things with transparency. Additionally, RSPO is committed to human rights issues in addition to sustainability. https://rspo.org/news-and-events/announcements/rspo-policy-on-human-rights-defenders-whistleblowers-complainants-and-community-spokespersons
https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/rape-abuses-in-palm-oil-fields-linked-to-top-beauty-brands-c-1611178
I agree.
This treatment of women is not specific to palm oil. If another oil replaced palm oil, I guarantee the same problems would happen – it’s not something inherent about palm oil. Human rights abuses happen across all types of products. I understand you do not want to support this industry, but you don’t have to avoid palm oil. Rather, the solution is to buy from companies that commit to ethical standards of sourcing. This is why I am an affiliate of Beautycounter – they are a certified B corporation makeup company, which independently rates corporations on sustainability and human rights among other things with transparency. Additionally, RSPO is committed to human rights issues in addition to sustainability. https://rspo.org/news-and-events/announcements/rspo-policy-on-human-rights-defenders-whistleblowers-complainants-and-community-spokespersons
1. Boycotting Palm Oil is Impossible for Most People
An interesting catch-all title. The two questions to ask are a) what is impossible and b) who are most people? Let’s take the second one first.
I am most people. There is nothing exceptional about me. I live in a Western industrialised democracy. I am a member of no political parties or pressure groups. I am perhaps conscious of the environmental damage I cause and do my best to reduce it, but I am not an environmental nazi. I’m not vegan. I’m not even vegetarian. I may even eat at MacDonalds a couple of times a year. But I do not knowingly buy products that contain palm oil. When I say “knowingly”, I mean I read the labels. I take your point that some products may contain palm oil that I don’t know about, but I am thinking, not many. I barely buy any industrialised products to eat. I eat no ready meals and cook almost everything I do eat. Anyone else could do the same. The vegetables come from the garden (many people could do this, should they choose), meat from the local butcher. Bread from the local bakery. All pre-prepared pastry here contains palm oil except one brand of pure butter pastry. So, I buy that. Except that I no longer do – I buy the stuff from the local bakery. I like chocolate and read the labels to make sure that it contains no palm oil. I buy almost no crisps, biscuits, cakes. I like them but they make you fat. When I want some biscuits, I make them. When I want a cake, I bake it. It’s not exactly rocket science or haute cuisine.
Does my shampoo contain palm oil? It may do, unbeknownst to me. But if it does and I knew, I’d choose another brand. Palm oil is not inevitable. Decades ago, it barely existed, so that is proof that it is superfluous. What you mean is that it is unavoidable if you can’t be bothered to expend a little energy in trying to avoid it. And if you end up with a little, so what? If everyone reduced their palm oil consumption by 95%, it would have a drastic and beneficial effect on the environment.
And make-up? How much do you need? Most guys don’t even like overly-made-up women. Less is more and are you sure that you can’t find palm-oil free make-up products?
Your point is essentially spurious. You can’t avoid palm oil, so don’t try. Wrong. You can avoid most of it and you should. This is the same tired argument as “people are going to be taking heroin anyway, so you may as well supply it” or “wars will always happen; the guns are going to come from somewhere, so you may as well supply them”. You can’t stop the inevitable, so you may as well be part of it. Not so, at least from any ethical point of view.
But, you may argue, people don’t have the time to avoid processed products which all contain palm oil. I’m not at all sure you’re right. It’s a choice to spend all your time at work and none cooking. Or, as so often happens, the time that could be spent in cooking is now frittered away on social media, posting on Instagram and Facebook, building a profile, self-promotion. Let’s face it, these occupations don’t come time-free and something has to make way for them. So much easier to put some crappy industrialised pizza in the microwave. I should point out that making your own pizza takes minutes – anyone with an oven can do it, and if you can be bothered to invest minimally in a food processor instead of the latest X-Box, you can produce one in no time flat.
So, when you say “boycotting palm oil is impossible” what you mean is that it is impossible if you invest no effort and insist on maintaining your palm-oil rich, post-industrial, tech-based existence. It’s a choice at the end of the day, but don’t pretend it isn’t.
2: The Alternative to Palm Oil Could Be Much Worse
Well, it could be, but with a little imagination, it might well not be. It is not my job here to quickly imagine zillions of solutions that could replace palm oil for the better. Tourism is obviously a likely contender. People will come from all over to see rain forests and wildlife. This may or may not be environmentally sustainable and I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty here, a) because it’s too complicated, b) because I haven’t time, c) because I’m not qualified. The point is, it could be much worse, but it could be much better. What evidence do we have that it will be inevitably worse? None.
3. People need to make a living, so palm oil needs to be tolerated.
An interesting argument that supports the status quo in every environmentally deleterious situation. Fracking? A huge industry. People have got to eat. Coal mining? Hey, that’s entire communities you’re putting out of work. What it comes down to is that short termism trumps everything. Jobs, human expansion, the right for everyone to produce as many kids as they want, has to come first. The human race now has to come before the environment ever and the future human race and the health of the planet. This is just a lazy, rubbish argument. Are you suggesting that no alternatives to palm oil production can be found? How about planting rainforests and selecting the extremely precious timber for managed use? Just an idea, but maybe one that doesn’t produce as many instant $$$ for multinationals.
4. You can trust the CSPO
Well, can you? I was happily trusting the FSC, until it became apparent (thank you, The Times) that this is an association that puts all sorts of politics above doing what it says on the tin. What is a sustainable forest anyway? What is a sustainable palm oil plantation and wasn’t it just a lot better when it was virgin forest? What you can trust is your own judgement, rather than farming it out to career environmentalists in pleasant towns on fat salaries.
Conclusion
What it comes down to is that corporations like palm oil because it is cheap and now plentiful and they can chuck it in everything. Most of the stuff they produce is non-essential and no one is going to die if we don’t have it. Companies will stop using it if consumers vote with their feet. People have got to start taking responsibility for all the rubbish they buy that is making them ill and fat and destroying the environment and other species to boot. Your apology for it, so well positioned on Google (congrats on the SEO job) does nothing for the environment and plenty for professional environmentalists. But then maybe finding jobs for these people is what your blog is all about? You’ve got to admit, it looks rather like that.
Hi Alex, Thanks for your feedback. It is a complex issue for sure. To address your points, my main argument is point 2 – that the alternative is worse. If palm oil goes away, people are not going to sit around and wait for zillions of solutions. They will need to make money fast to support their families. Tourism is a much slower industry in terms of making money and is not as consistent as farming. Yes there is demand for tourism in SE Asia, but as much as there is for palm oil or alternative crops. The evidence that we have that it will be worse is presented through the links an the blog post, which are studies done by the IUCN. https://www.iucn.org/news/secretariat/201806/saying-no-palm-oil-would-likely-displace-not-halt-biodiversity-loss—iucn-report?fbclid=IwAR0Ck6fnfn6ZQIO8kFHleofLPImb9aAjRlGkPgFP_h8BneI1fve3gAA23nA
To address point 1. I am super happy you read labels and check for palm oil, but you are definitely not most people! I’m not sure where you are from, but you mentioned you eat no ready made meals for the most part. Most people are not willing to give that up. Like at all. I am a conservationist and environmentalist and I can’t even get my husband and immediate family to 100% check labels and abandon fast food. I wish more people were like you, but they aren’t. Some people just don’t care. I explained about plastic straws to one of my friends and the effects of ocean plastic and she basically said that she understands and that it sucks, but she still wants a straw. And that she doesn’t like the paper ones because they break down. Also some people don’t have to luxury to make food from scratch, are working multiple jobs, etc. You said “Your point is essentially spurious. You can’t avoid palm oil, so don’t try.” That’s not my point. My main point is the alternative is much worse and secondary people will not check their products. Like I said, I can’t even get my family to change certain behaviors. You even admit yourself you do not know if it is in your personal care products. I myself pretty much avoid palm oil because like you I eat whole foods, hardly ever eat out, etc. But unfortunately, this is not the world we live in. 3. I am not suggesting that no alternatives can be found – but a lot of them are worse. You mentioned tourism. Well COVID messed up tourism in a lot of countries and now people are turning to other means which are not good for the environment. There 100% is forestry in Malaysia and I even wrote a post on Deramakot, which is a forested protected area. But again, you have to shift human behavior to stop buying cheap things (e.g. regular wood products) and shift to those that cost more and are more sustainable. If you do not provide people with a means to make money, they will turn to anything they can do. To really shift the palm oil industry, you would need major investments by the SE Asian country’s governments with a plan to shift them towards whatever industry that you think would be more sustainable. This would not happen overnight. 4. CSPO is better than regular palm oil and the alternative. Is it perfect? No, but we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. I have nothing to do with the palm oil industry at all – I don’t even have any influence in SE Asia LOL. I just avoided palm oil for such a long time and realized when I went to a professional meeting on conservation biology where thousands of scientists gather, that avoiding palm oil is much worse. ALL of the major conservation organizations support RSPO (WWF, WCS, CI, and Jane Goodall’s organization! https://news.janegoodall.org/2017/10/27/5412/). If you don’t support local communities and provide people with jobs, conservation 100% will fail because people will ultimately go back to natural resources to exploit the environment.
Biruté Galdikas… along with Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, were called the Trimates. They were all hired by Louis Leakey to study the great apes in their own natural habitats. Jane Goodall studies the chimpanzees, Biruté Galdikas studies the orangutans, and Dian Fossey studied the mountain gorillas.
I really can’t see Jane Goodall supporting the RSPO when the RSPO, which is the palm oil industry, is responsible for killing off millions of animals every year, Chimpanzees included. What she is in favor of is to make palm oil sustainable. The problem is it is not sustainable for many reasons. But you know if you say something so many times, and in so many different ways, people will start believing anything. If the palm oil industry was a PR firm they would be the best PR firm in the world.
No conservationist *wants* palm oil. As the blog post mentions, there are lots of problems with RSPO and it needs to be better. But we don’t live in an ideal world and research shows that if we all came together and stopped buying palm oil, the problem would just shift and actually be a much worse outcome for biodiversity. Here are a couple articles showing her support: https://news.janegoodall.org/2018/02/14/roses-are-red-violets-are-blue-sustainable-palm-oil-is-long-overdue/, https://news.janegoodall.org/2017/10/27/5412/. Her youth program, Roots and Shoots even has a guide: https://www.rootsandshoots.org/actions/true-cost-palm-oil/
Well Said!!