Rainforest
The story of palm oil starts in the rainforest, home to more than half of the world's estimated 10m species of plants, animals and insects and seen as a potential source of cures for a range of diseases. Known as the ‘lungs of the planet’, rainforests recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen. They also store water, prevent soil erosion and protect biodiversity. But they're under serious threat.
Value of the rainforest: dead and alive
Setting a value on nature is a complex process, and certainly not without its critics, but it offers a way to make decisions about natural resources such as rainforests. Academics in the US and the Netherlands have calculated the economic value of Leuser National Park in Sumatra, Indonesia – one of the two remaining habitats for Sumatran organutans – which is under threat of deforestation for the cultivation of palm oil and rubber. They calculated the value of the forest to people in the region over a 30-year period if it were protected, and the value if it were destroyed for logging and subsequent cultivation.
Tweet thisHover over the elements on the left hand side to compare the value of the ecosystem benefits offered by the rainforest when it's conserved and when it's cut down.
Source: Economic valuation of the Leuser National Park on Sumatra, Indonesia, Pieter JH van Beukering, Herman SJ Cesar, Marco A Janssen
The destruction of Indonesia's forests
Exact rates of deforestation in Indonesia vary, with different figures quoted by researchers and government. However, the World Resources Insitute estimates that the country lost more than 6m hectares of primary forest between 2000 and 2012 - an area half the size of England. The images below show primary forest loss in the Riau province of Indonesia between 2000 and 2012. Slide the bar across to compare the before and after imagery.
Primary forest cover in 2012
Primary forest cover in 2000
Images: Global Forest Watch
Plantation
Palm oil plantations in south-east Asia have tripled in just a decade, driving deforestation, habitat loss and the destruction of communities across Indonesia and Malaysia. These plantations also have a large impact on greenhouse gas emissions because they are often established on land converted from swamp forests, which release carbon dioxide and methane when they are cleared.
Palm oil production by country
Palm oil only grows in some of the world's most biodiverse countries. Indonesia is the largest producer of the ubiquitious oil, with palm oil plantations already spanning more than 6m hectares. Malaysia is the second largest producer, estimated to produce 39% of the world's palm oil. And while African and Latin American countries have yet to see the explosion of production experienced by these two south-east Asian nations, they are becoming bigger palm oil players. Watch the map, and use the slider, to see the growth in global palm oil production over the last 50 years.
MT = metric tonnes
Source: Index Mundi, year of estimate 2014
The impact of palm oil in pictures - gallery
Can palm oil be sustainable?
Some believe that palm oil has no place in a sustainable future while others maintain that with stringent industry regulations and responsibly managed land, production of this global commodity can work in tandem with conserving our environment and protecting communities. Use the audio player below to hear the verdicts of three experts on whether palm oil can ever be sustainable.
Tweet this[Palm oil] must make genuine contributions to the development of emerging economies like Indonesia rather than destroying the future of its people, its wildlife.. and global climate on which we all depend.
We must realise that producers will only produce sustainably if consumers like us send a clear signal that we want a sustainable product.
If you really want true sustainable production... it would be produced by the smallholders on land that they already own, is non-forested and under-utilised in its present state
Community
The story of palm oil is a complex one. The industry offers a path out of poverty for many people in developing countries such as Indonesia, where more than 28 million live below the poverty line. However, many oil palm plantations have been developed without consultation or compensation of the people that live on the land. These communities may not own their land but have managed it for generations, growing food and cash crops, and gathering medicines and building materials from the forests.
Supriyono is a 40 year-old smallholder palm oil farmer from Dosan village in Sumatra. The Dosan community has committed to protecting forests and implementing sustainable farming practices. Supriyono speaks about the impact palm oil has had on his income, prospects and hopes for his family.
Tweet thisVideo: Ulet Ifansasti, Interview and text: Yosef Riadi
Photo: Greenpeace/Ulet Ifansasti
'We lost everything': a pineapple farmer on how the palm oil industry has affected his livelihood
Laskar Harianja is a 30 year-old farmer and single father, who supports his three children on the income from his small pineapple plantation. He saw his plantation destroyed by fires caused by peatland destruction to make way for palm oil plantations.
Read moreWhere it goes
The 42m metric tonnes of palm oil exported each year is shipped to more than 70 countries around the world, where it is used in everything from biofuels to chocolate bars. Of that, 16% was certified sustainable palm oil in 2013, meaning it meets standards around deforestation, lawfulness, transparency and social impact laid out by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. However many say these are not sufficient to ensure it is sustainable and deforestation-free.
Palm oil imports
Palm oil is the most used vegetable oil in the world and demand for the versatile oil is booming. The populous emerging markets of India and China, where palm oil is predominantly used for cooking, are the biggest importers of palm oil. Watch the map, and use the slider, to see how the import market has grown over the last five decades.
MT = metric tonnes
Tweet this
Source: Index Mundi, year of estimate 2014
How much of this is sustainable?
The market for sustainable palm oil is growing but it still represents only a relatively small fraction of overall palm oil sales.
MT = metric tonnes
59.6m MT
Total volume of palm oil produced in 2013 (USDA)
9.8m MT
Total volume of certified sustainable palm oil produced (RSPO)
5.4m MT
Only 51.7% of the certified sustainable palm oil produced is sold as CSPO (RSPO trade data)
What does the marketplace look like?
Global production of palm oil has doubled over the last decade, and is set to double again by 2020. Driving much of this growth is the rapid expansion of demand in Asia’s populous emerging markets, where palm oil is liberally used in frying and cooking.
Read moreBusiness
Companies are under increasing pressure from many sections of society to reduce their environmental and social impacts. When it comes to palm oil, some businesses have responded to these demands, such as Unilever, which sources 100% of its palm oil sustainably; but others, such as Burger King, refuse to disclose what percentage of the palm oil they use is certified.
How much palm oil do businesses use?
Find out which companies buy the most palm oil. Hover over the pie charts to see how much of what they buy is certified as sustainable and which household-name companies refuse to disclose this information.
Certified sustainable palm oil
Non-certified palm oil
Estimated total purchased
Undisclosed
MT = metric tonnes
Business case studies: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Burger King
Burger King has long been criticised for its heavy use of palm oil from questionable sources. Palm oil is mixed into the oil used to cook its french fries and crops up in recipes for its cookies and baked goods.
Read moreCadbury
Shortly before it was bought by Kraft Foods, Cadbury suffered the kind of PR disaster that brand managers have nightmares about.
Read moreL'Oréal
In January 2014, L’Oréal announced its plan to become “free from deforestation” in the production of all its products by 2020 at the latest.
Read moreProcter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble was named and shamed by Greenpeace for an inadequate policy on sourcing palm oil in 2014.
Read moreConsumers
Palm oil is estimated to be in around half of all packaged items found in supermarkets and is a common ingredient in margarine, biscuits, bread, breakfast cereal, instant noodles, shampoo, lipstick, candles, detergents, chocolate and ice cream. It is the most widely used vegetable oil on the planet, accounting for 65% of all vegetable oil traded internationally.
What do you value most?
When you shop for everyday products, aside from lower prices, which of the following are most likely to influence your decision on what to buy? Drag and drop the different options below so that they appear in the order of what you value most to least. Then click 'compare' to see how your values rank against those of surveyed consumers.
Tweet thisYour values
Survey results†
Special offers/price: 51%
High quality: 41%
Durability: 25%
My favourite brand: 22%
Convenience: 22%
A socially responsible company: 9%
†Based on a survey of 2,000 UK internet users aged 16+ conducted by Mintel in April 2014.
Alternatives
Rapeseed and soybean oil are among the most popular alternatives to palm oil but their cultivation can also damage the environment. In fact, palm oil has a better yield per hectare and requires less fertiliser and pesticides than either. Campaigners are wary of pushing for alternatives to palm oil and instead want to improve the palm oil industry.
Palm oil v the alternatives: how do they compare?
Palm oil is deeply controversial, especially among environmental activists but few, if any, can point to an alternative. This interactive helps explain why. The advantage of palm oil, compared to oils such as soybean and rapesed, is the high production rate per hectare combined with the relatively small amount of energy, fertiliser and pesticides needed.
Tweet thisYield
Tonnes of oil produced per hectare
Fertiliser
Kg to produce one tonne of oil
Pesticides
Kg to produce one tonne of oil
Energy input
Gigajoules to produce one tonne of oil
Why there's no easy answer to finding a sustainable alternative
Despite a move towards sustainable palm oil production in recent years, environmentalists continue to campaign.
Read moreWhat does the marketplace look like?
Photo: Alamy
Global production of palm oil has doubled over the last decade, and is set to double again by 2020. Driving much of this growth is the rapid expansion of demand in Asia’s populous emerging markets, where palm oil is liberally used in frying and cooking.
Of the 59m metric tonnes (MT) of palm oil produced in the 2013/14 financial year, 42% was consumed in one of just three countries: India (8.3m MT), Indonesia (9.8m MT) and China (6.4m MT). Lagging behind in fourth are the 27 member states of the European Union, which collectively consumed just over 10% (6.2m MT).
Yet when it comes to certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO), the story is very different. The vast majority of cargo ships leaving Indonesia and Malaysia, which produce over 90% of the world’s certified palm oil, are bound for Europe. CSPO sales are particularly strong in the UK, the Netherlands, France and Germany.
Europe’s dominance in the CSPO trade isn’t altogether surprising. The move towards sustainable palm oil arose as a direct response to clamouring from environmental groups such as WWF, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth – the core audiences of which are primarily European.
Eight European nations, including Germany, France and the Netherlands, have made voluntary commitments to make all palm oil imports 100% CSPO. For the most part, industry-led coalitions are behind such calls.
Many of the huge corporate buyers driving demand for sustainable palm oil are headquartered in Europe. The three corporations involved in designing the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) - Anglo-Dutch consumer giant Unilever, Swiss retail chain Migros, and the UK arm of Swedish food manufacturer Aarhus (now AKK) – are all European. Even today, almost two-thirds (64%) of RSPO’s 1,722 non-palm oil producing members come from the region.
In contrast, uptake in Asia is slow. Lack of public interest in environmental issues is partly to blame, as is consumers’ reluctance to pay more.
Overall worldwide demand for CSPO is increasing. Total sales of certified palm oil increased by almost half (48.8%) in the first six months of 2014 compared to the same period last year.
Yet demand still lags supply. Only 47% of the 5.28m tonnes of CSPO produced from January to June garnered a premium price, obliging certified producers to sell the remainder at standard market rates.
Alternatives
Photo: Graham Turner/the Guardian
Despite a move towards sustainable palm oil production in recent years, environmentalists continue to campaign. For some, current certification standards are too lax. For others, the system lacks independence. What unites them all, however, is frustration over the pace of uptake. Certified sustainable plantations only account for only 16% of global palm production. For the remaining 84%, it’s business as usual.
Is it time to think of some alternatives? Palm oil dominates the vegetable oil market, appearing in everything from peanut butter and margarine to shampoo and shaving foam. Yet edible oils can be extracted from a host of other vegetables. Soya, rapeseed, sunflowers and peanuts, to name but a few.
Palm oil producers are quick to point out the commercial limitations of such alternatives. Per hectare, a palm oil plantation averages around 3.6 tonnes of oil. A hectare planted with soya or rapeseed produces only 0.3 tonnes and 0.8 tonnes respectively. Swapping palm oil for rapeseed would mean more than quadrupling the land currently occupied by palm oil plantations.
The chemical and energy inputs for palm oil alternatives are high too. Soya typically uses 344kg of nitrogen fertiliser, pesticides and herbicides to produce one tonne of oil. Palm oil, averages 49kg. As vegetable oils go, even Greenpeace accepts that palm oil is the “best solution”. But only when produced responsibly. “It is fundamentally one of the most efficient vegetable oils in terms of land use,” says spokesperson, Richard George.
Another possible substitute is animal fat. But any increase in animal production carries land use concerns as well, says George. Cattle ranching represents one of the chief causes of Amazonian deforestation (along with soya), he notes. Consumer health presents an additional hurdle too.
Algal oil produced through the natural mutation process of algae and standard industrial fermentation is another potential option. But initial trials by green cleaning brand Ecover were suspended earlier this year after vociferous opposition to the method’s reliance on Brazilian sugar and synthetic biology.
The focus of most campaigners remains on tightening the rules governing palm oil certification, and then getting the commodity’s big players to adhere.
Burger King
Photo: Frank Baron/the Guardian
Burger King has long been criticised for its use of palm oil from questionable sources. Palm oil is mixed into the oil used to cook its french fries and crops up in recipes for its cookies and baked goods.
The fast food chain is a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), and says it is committed to sourcing palm oil from sustainable suppliers that are also RSPO members.
Burger King says the vast majority of palm oil used in its restaurants is for its cooking blends and as of 2014, all palm oil used in those blends must be Green Palm certified under RSPO standards.
But critics say that is not enough. Pat Venditti, a senior forest campaigner at Greenpeace says a policy that refers back to the RSPO “isn’t sufficient to stop palm oil from deforestation coming through to their supply chain”. Greenpeace's investigations say they have found evidence that some RSPO members are still relying on palm oil suppliers which destroy rainforests and convert peatlands for their plantations.
What’s more, Burger King will not disclose what percentage of the palm oil it uses is certified sustainable palm oil and does not track sourcing back to the plantation level. In its scorecard on big brands’ use of palm oil, published in March this year, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), says: “Burger King [has] commitments that are too weak to receive a score.”
The situation could get worse. Burger King is in the process of buying Canadian coffee and doughnuts chain, Tim Hortons, which uses palm oil to make its doughnuts. Lael Goodman, a UCS analyst, says: “Few recognise the threat this merger poses to the world’s tropical forests. Both companies have appalling track records on palm oil.”
Tim Hortons recently became target of a campaign against doughnut companies to address its sourcing of palm oil. The company said in response that 100% of the palm oil it buys in 2015 will come from sources verified as supporting sustainable production.
Cadbury
Photo: Graham Turner/the Guardian
Shortly before it was bought by Kraft Foods, Cadbury suffered the kind of PR disaster that brand managers have nightmares about.
Without warning, the cocoa fat content of Dairy Milk bars in Australia and New Zealand dropped by 5% to be replaced by ‘vegetable fats’. Suggestions that Cadbury was putting palm oil in its chocolate bars started circulating on social media sites but the company ignored them and the backlash that followed.
When environmental groups and bloggers picked up on the story, Cadbury finally came out to explain its position. The company had included palm oil to give the chocolate a ‘softer bite’, it said; and the palm oil was certified as sustainable.
But by then it had lost the battle. Roger Sharp, the company’s Sydney-based director of corporate affairs, was quoted in the New Zealand press, saying: “It’s hard to get cut-through with the complexities of global supply chains and certification systems when people are saying, ‘I don’t want palm oil. It’s killing orangutans. Get it out of my Cadbury Dairy Milk’.”
Cadbury duly removed the controversial ingredient from its Dairy Milk bars in Australasia but it remains in many other Cadbury products.
Cadbury is updating its palm oil policy. It says 100% of its palm oil is already certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and it has gone beyond that certification, requiring its suppliers to achieve 100% traceability of palm oil, right back to the mills that produce it, by the end of 2015.
L’Oréal
Photo: Antagain/Getty images
In January 2014, L’Oréal announced its plan to become “free from deforestation” in the production of all its products by 2020 at the latest.
This is no easy task. L’Oréal bought 450 tonnes of crude palm oil last year and 60,000 tonnes of palm and palm kernel based derivatives, such as certain surface active agents that provide the detergent and foaming qualities of shampoos.
The company is working with NGOs to develop ambitious solutions to achieve its target, while taking into account local communities.
It says it will promote and support the most innovative and progressive suppliers, which can guarantee key criteria, including compliance with the laws in the country on cultivation; informed consent from indigenous people and local communities; a focus on workers’ rights; conservation and restoration of forests; and a pledge not to clear peat for new plantations.
The company has received plaudits from across the spectrum for its approach. The Union of Concerned Scientists gives it a score of 80% for its global commitments to use palm oil that is deforestation-free, peat-free, traceable and transparently sourced.
Pat Venditti, a senior forest campaigner at Greenpeace, says: “L’Oréal are doing what we’re expecting from other companies, which is drilling down into their supply chain, getting rid of any supply streams that might be involved in deforestation. They have made those commitments and to our observation they are being pursued and delivered.”
He says the drive to address this issue has come from public pressure. “Companies are recognising that the cost of being involved in rainforest destruction is higher than the cost of dealing with the problem.”
Procter & Gamble
Photo: Alamy
Procter & Gamble was named and shamed by Greenpeace for an inadequate policy on sourcing palm oil in 2014. The company behind products that crowd the supermarket shelves – from Fairy to Pampers, Head & Shoulders and Gillette – is reliant on its reputation with consumers and was quick to respond, committing to a no deforestation policy in April.
P&G has a challenge on its hands to trace the palm oil in its products. Pat Venditti, a senior forest campaigner at Greenpeace, explains: “The products going into the [P&G] product aren’t the oil, they’re going to come from palm kernel oil at a secondary stage of processing. So they are dealing with more potential suppliers to go through. It’s a slightly more complicated supply chain.”
P&G addressed the traceability of the palm oil and palm kernel oil derivatives in its new policy, which Greenpeace considers “much more robust”.
It is the third biggest purchaser of palm oil in the world, using more than 500,000 tonnes last year. Almost half of this was certified sustainable and the company has committed to making 100% traceable by 2015, ensuring there is no deforestation in the supply chain by 2020.
Campaigners say its new policy still falls short. Calen May-Tobin, an analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says: “The Procter & Gamble commitment places much of the burden of ensuring deforestation-free and peat-free palm oil on its suppliers with no clear process for verifying that suppliers are meeting these requirements. The reality is that if Procter & Gamble wants to protect tropical forests, they cannot rely on suppliers to do that for them.”
He says the timeline is also far from ambitious. “The policy sets 2020 as a deadline for sourcing deforestation-free palm oil and palm kernel oil. Many of Procter & Gamble’s competitors are working towards a 2015 goal.”
'We lost everything': a pineapple farmer on how the palm oil industry has affected his livelihood
Photo: Greenpeace/Ulet Ifansasti
Peatlands are being drained and cleared across Indonesia to make way for palm oil plantations. This not only releases millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, but it also dries the land, making it susceptible to devastating fires. These are often caused by palm oil and pulpwood companies burning forest to clear land.
In 2014 Greenpeace visited Riau province to speak to some of the communities affected by these fires.
Laskar Harianja is a 30 year-old smallholder farmer and a single father who supports his three children with the income from his pineapple plantation.
He moved to the area from Jakarta in 2013. “At that time we rarely saw fire. Then forests were being cleared, peat being drained. So now the forest, which conserves water, has disappeared. In the dry season, the water dries and evaporates easily... Now the fires burn much deeper, and much faster.”
2014 has seen a spike in the number of forest fires in Riau. Between February and March alone, 21,000 hectares of drained peat swamps were destroyed, and Harianja and his family saw their plantation burnt to the ground.
“When the fire came, my three children and I tried to extinguish it. Water was very hard to find. We used peat water. However, a gust of wind brought fire and smoke towards us, forcing us to give up the effort.
“So we lost everything then. Yes, I cried at that time. However, I am not the only one who suffered from this; almost everyone here was affected. So at least I am not alone.”