Bans, Better Management and Making Palm Oil More Rainforest-Friendly
The U.S. stopped inbound shipments from some top producers in Malaysia on allegations of forced labor in the second-biggest grower, while the EU plans to phase out palm-based biofuels by classifying the commodity from large plantations as unsustainable. [Source: Anusha Ondaatjie, Bloomberg, April 6, 2021]
Joe Fassler wrote in Smithsonian magazine : Under pressure from Greenpeace the world’s largest palm oil trader, Wilmar International, signed a 100 percent zero-deforestation agreement in 2013. Public outcry also moved the European Union to change its labeling laws in 2014, making it easier to spot palm oil on ingredient lists. (The U.S. has required labeling of specific oils since 1976.) Concerned buyers can also look for a seal of approval from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Some critics argue that the RSPO, founded in 2004 by industry leaders, doesn’t go far enough: Its standards forbid deforestation only in “high conservation value areas,” a term that has no legal definition. And a trader who earns an RSPO certificate can go on to mix “clean” and uncertified oil. What’s more, the world’s largest palm oil markets are in India, China and Indonesia, where most consumers — who use it for cooking — may not even be aware of such options. [Source: Joe Fassler, Smithsonian magazine, March 2016]
“Still, more big food companies are getting the message. On its 2015 sustainable palm oil scorecard, the Union of Concerned Scientists gave high ratings to such companies as Gerber, Kellogg’s, Unilever, General Mills, PepsiCo, Dunkin’ Donuts and Safeway. Environmental NGOs ultimately hope to see oil palm growers planting on already-deforested land. In the meantime, they warn against boycotting palm oil altogether. “That would mean shifting problems onto another commodity,” says Katie McCoy, the head of forest programs at CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project). Moreover, from a health perspective, palm oil is the ideal substitute for partially hydrogenated oils, the “trans fats” that food processors love and health experts hate. Palm oil is semisolid at room temperature and can stay stable for long periods without going rancid. Sustainable palm oil may be elusive, but it’s possible — and, in fact, it may even be necessary for the planet’s healthy future.
Palm oil would be much more sustainable if it were managed responsibly, says Nigel Sizer, director of the Global Forest Initiative at the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank based in Washington DC. “It is possible to have carbon-neutral plantations if they are grown on already heavily logged and degraded land,” he says. Krystof Obidzinski, a forest-governance researcher at the Center for International Forestry Research in Bogor, Indonesia, agrees that there is plenty of non-forested or degraded land that could be used for plantations, but says that nations and companies need incentives to use it. Forested land is more attractive because companies can get extra income from the timber, and it is also less likely to be inhabited by large numbers of locals who can claim land rights and financial compensation, says Obidzinski. [Source: Natasha Gilbert, Nature, July 4, 2012]
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is an international non-profit association based in Zurich, Switzerland that brings together conservation groups and palm-oil firms. It was formed in 2004 by the palm oil industry in Malaysia in conjunction with the WWF, it aims to ensure development of palm oil in a sustainable way. The RSPO has directly endorsed several organisations, such as 'GreenPalm', to help make a contribution towards improving the environmental issues caused by palm oil production. [Source: New York Times, June 3, 2010]
The RSPO has set up standards for producing palm oil sustainably and certifies producers that meet its criteria. Hillary Rosner wrote in National Geographic:“ Plantations certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) can’t clear “primary forests or areas which contain significant concentrations of biodiversity (e.g. endangered species) or fragile ecosystems.” They must minimize erosion and protect water sources. They must pay a minimum wage and get “free, prior, and informed consent” from local communities.[Source: Hillary Rosner, National Geographic, December 2018]
Top consumer goods companies, such as Unilever, Kellogg, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson are members, as well as agribusiness giant Cargill, the largest importer of palm oil to the United States, are working with RSPO. “Today the RSPO certifies roughly one-fifth of the global supply. Many consumer goods manufacturers that rely on palm oil have pledged to switch their supply chains exclusively to certified palm oil over the next few years. That’s a big step forward. But it’s not enough. “What’s essential and still mostly lacking is government intervention in producing countries. “We in the conservation community were vastly overoptimistic in thinking that market-based solutions alone could solve this,” says John Buchanan, who runs the sustainable food and agriculture markets program at Conservation International. “If the government isn’t on board or doesn’t have the capacity or doesn’t know what it’s doing,” he says, the rain forest still takes a hit.
Skepticism About RSPO
The RSPO says that that it will not certify oil grown on land that was deforested to farm the crop. According to Nature: But many are skeptical that the RSPO can effectively police the industry’s rapid growth. “I am not confident at all that this is being done properly,” says Joshua Linder, a biological anthropologist at the James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He and others are keenly watching how the RSPO handles a flood of complaints filed against a planned 70,000-hectare oil-palm plantation in Cameroon, for example, in what is seen as a test case of the body’s power to hold companies to account. In a statement, the RSPO told Nature that it was prepared to act in serious cases of environmental negligence, when it “may ultimately require a member to take specific actions or face cancellation of its RSPO membership”. [Source: Natasha Gilbert, Nature, July 4, 2012]
The New York Times reported, “Many environmentalists say the panel merely provides green cover to industry. They were particularly critical of its decision last year to exclude greenhouse gas emissions when deciding whether to certify oil as sustainable. Participating companies, particularly Indonesian growers, were reluctant to create a standard they could meet only by slowing forest clearance, and pressured the board to omit it, said Adam Harrison, who represents the conservation group WWF at the roundtable. Members agreed instead to develop a voluntary program for growers to measure the greenhouse gases generated by their plantations. [Source: New York Times, June 3, 2010]
The industry says this was at least a step forward. “It was widely accepted that the development of plantations in the palm oil sector” caused emissions, said Marc den Hartog, a member of the roundtable’s board and an executive at IOI Group, a Malaysian palm oil company. There would be more progress, he said, “despite the fact that for many people it won’t go fast enough.” In the first year after it began certifying palm oil in 2009, the roundtable certified about two million tons as sustainable, in an industry that produces more than 45 million tons a year. Meeting certification requirements can add as much as $100 a ton to the price of a commodity that generally runs around $600 a ton, Mr. den Hartog said.
But campaigners say that certifying palm oil just shifts the problem. Growers use long-cleared land for sustainable oil while destroying forest to create plantations catering to less choosy consumers. The industry’s structure makes it difficult to influence, said Mr. Harrison, of WWF. While some big growers, processors and lenders produce and bankroll palm oil, “there are thousands of smaller companies, especially in Indonesia, one-off units that are much more difficult for us to get leverage over.”
Worse still, Indonesia’s government and local authorities often require companies holding land concessions to destroy all rainforest in their permit area, once it has been officially designated for development, Mr. Harrison said. That is contrary to roundtable guidelines encouraging the setting aside of zones for wildlife habitat, he said. “It becomes very difficult for a company that wants to be responsible to be responsible,” he said.
See Separate Article on PALM OIL AND MALAYSIA factsanddetails.com
Sustainable Palm Oil Agriculture in Gabon?
Singapore-based agribusiness giant Olam has opened two new oil palm plantations, each with its own mill in Gabon. More than half of Olam’s Mouila plantation occupies savanna a site chosen to avoid more deforestation. Gabon has developed a national land-use plan that attempts to “keep a balance between oil palm, agriculture, and forestry. Olam employs nearly 6,000 workers at Mouila and pays them Gabon’s minimum wage of about $260 a month. [Source: Hillary Rosner, National Geographic, December 2018]
Hillary Rosner wrote in National Geographic:““In southwestern Gabon, the old-growth forest stretches hundreds of miles. One January morning I disembark from a narrow boat on the shore of the Ngounié River with a few employees of Olam, a Singapore-based agribusiness company. Following elephant tracks, we plunge into the forest. We pass towering, ancient trees, chimpanzee nests, piles of day-old gorilla dung. Monkeys scamper overhead. A young Olam ranger yanks off his boots and climbs barefoot up a trunk, returning with handfuls of pink, plumlike fruits. Wandering farther we find wild mangoes, kola nuts, bark that smells of garlic. At a sun-dappled clearing, fish splash in a watering hole. The trees around it have been scratched by elephant tusks.
“The place is not a park or a preserve but part of the Mouila oil palm plantation, operated by Olam. If it were in Indonesia or Malaysia loggers and bulldozers might be closing in to clear the jungle for uniform rows of oil palm trees. That kind of shortsighted ecological rampaging is precisely what Gabon is trying to avoid. The Eden I visited will not be razed: Olam has protected it as part of an agreement with the government that allows the company to grow oil palms elsewhere on its concession. “What we’re trying to do in Gabon is find a new development path where we don’t cut all our forest down but keep a balance between oil palm, agriculture, and forest preservation,” says Lee White, the conservation biologist who runs Gabon’s parks agency. As the nation of fewer than two million people embarks on industrial-scale agriculture, the government is using scientific assessments to decide which parts of its expansive forests have high conservation value and which can be opened to oil palms.
Inside the plantation, it’s easy to lose your sense of direction amid row upon row of palm trees, punctuated by indistinguishable dirt roads. At the end of each row, workers have piled fresh palm-fruit bunches and loose fruit. In the afternoon other workers will toss the fruit into dump trucks, which will deliver it to an on-site mill that processes 50 tons of oil an hour. At Olam’s Mouila plantation, farther south, an even bigger mill is producing twice as much oil. More than half the planted area at Mouila was open savanna. Research here has revealed the presence of a rare antelope, the southern reedbuck. Photographed by a camera trap in 2017, the animal is helping White justify a new national park in the savanna.
“Atop a small hill within the plantation, we climb to the roof of a truck. For 180 degrees, the rows of oil palms stretch nearly to the horizon. In the scorching, the monochrome view is dizzying. The map Stewart of the plantation is even more sobering. This section of plantation covers nearly 40,000 acres; what we’re seeing is less than 7 percent of that.
Sri Lanka Boycotts Palm Oil and Orders Palm Oil Trees to Be Destroyed
In 2021, Sri Lanka banned imports of palm oil and told planters to get rid of all palm oil palms in the country. Bloomberg reported: “The island nation joined some other countries in bashing palm oil. Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa ordered companies and other entities growing oil palm to remove the trees in a phased manner. They have been asked to uproot 10 percent of the trees each year and replace the fields with rubber or other environment-friendly crops, according to an official statement. [Source: Anusha Ondaatjie, Bloomberg, April 6, 2021]
“Palm oil imports don’t help their cash crops, while oil palm plantations could lead to deforestation in the country,” said Gnanasekar Thiagarajan, head of trading and hedging strategies at Kaleesuwari Intercontinental. “Sri Lanka is a top producer of coconut oil and palm oil could pose a threat to that sector,” he said, adding the nation annually buys 200,000 tons to 250,000 tons of palm oil.
Sri Lanka has around 11,000 hectares (27,181 acres) of palm plantations — just over 1 percent of the total area planted with tea, rubber and coconut, CAL Research said. “Sri Lanka’s Director-General of Customs has been advised to refrain from clearing palm oil cargoes, the statement said. At the same time, the cultivation of oil palm will be completely banned, it added. “The members of the World Trade Organization cannot ban imports without proper justifications and the latest move could technically be challenged,” said Sathia Varqa, owner of Palm Oil Analytics in Singapore. “A temporary ban is fine but not a permanent ban as non-discrimination is the basic principle of the WTO.”
Food Companies Take a Stronger Stance on Palm Oil Use
According to the New York Times: As awareness of deforestation grows, consumer pressure has prompted many companies to promise to use palm oil from sustainable sources only. Unilever, a huge user of palm oil in products like Dove soap and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, has promised that by 2015 it will buy only from plantations certified as sustainable. Nestlé, singled out by Greenpeace in an aggressive online campaign, recently made a similar pledge. The roundtable met last year with the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in an effort to promote the use of the sustainable product in that country, which is the world’s largest importer of palm oil, said Mr. den Hartog, of IOI Group. [Source: New York Times, June 3, 2010]
In 2020, Mars Inc., the maker of Snickers and Dove candy, said it no longer buy from palm-oil suppliers that were not committed to preventing deforestation. According to Bloomberg: “The company said that it has reached the point where its palm-oil use is no longer contributing to the clearing of tropical forests — a practice that’s a major contributor to global warming. With fewer suppliers, Mars said it’s easier to verify that the providers are meeting environmental and ethical goals. [Source: Carolina Gonzalez and Eric Roston, Bloomberg, October 6, 2020]
“Mars is using satellite mapping to monitor land use and third-party validation, and says it has asked its suppliers to apply the same rules to all production, including for other buyers. Mars has gotten rid of two major suppliers and 21 second-tier suppliers for not following its protocols. “We have cleaned up our act,” said Barry Parkin, chief procurement and sustainability officer at Mars. He added that the aim is for the changes to improve behavior across the entire industry. “We’re weeding out the bad actors and we’re rewarding the good actors,” he added in an interview.While a tighter supply chain is easier to regulate, it also lets Mars “shorten the pipeline” from plantation to refinery, lowering costs, Parkin said.
“With awareness rising, Mars and peers such as Mondelez International Inc., Nestle SA and Unilever NV have pledged to take steps to prevent further environmental damage. In a 2019 report, the World Wildlife Fund gave Mars a score of 17.3 out of 22, which ranks companies on their efforts to prevent deforestation and support a responsible and sustainable palm-oil industry. That places Mars as the 12th best performer amid the 173 total in the study.
Alternatives to Palm Oil Are Often Worse
Boycotting palm oil may not be a good idea. Hillary Rosner wrote in National Geographic: Alternative oil crops would swallow even more land. It’s also futile, because palm oil is so pervasive and so often processed into ingredients, such as sodium lauryl sulfate and stearic acid, whose origins are opaque to consumers. We’re not likely to cut palm oil consumption radically. The only way forward is to make its production less bad. [Source:Hillary Rosner, National Geographic, December 2018]
Joe Fassler wrote in Smithsonian magazine: Consumers who want to avoid palm oil have an almost impossible task because it’s in everything from ice cream to instant ramen, toothpaste to lipstick....As destructive as the oil palm is to the environment, it may be better than the alternatives. No other crop can yield even a third as much oil per acre planted. And along with using less land, the oil palm gobbles up significantly fewer pesticides and chemical fertilizers than coconut, corn or any other vegetable oil source.[Source: Joe Fassler, Smithsonian magazine, March 2016]
In many ways, the palm oil sectors is doing more to address deforestation concerns than other sectors that threaten rainforests. In 2021 Reuters reported: Of the seven commodities sectors driving deforestation, palm oil companies are doing the most to alleviate their environmental impact following years of public pressure, a study by CDP, a global environmental disclosure group shows. Based on responses from more than 550 leading companies in the agri-commodities sector, the study found nearly all who use or produce palm oil are taking at least one industry accepted measure to address deforestation, such as having sufficiently ambitious traceability targets. Companies involved with rubber, by contrast, are doing the least, while the coffee and cattle products sector also perform poorly, the study found. “Palm oil has been the subject of public campaigns in recent years. Companies see palm oil as a reputational risk," it noted. [Source: Maytaal Angel, Reuters, March 21, 2021
Image Source: Mongabay mongabay.com ; Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.
Last updated May 2026