The Truth About Palm Oil: The Good and The Bad

As I’ve taken more and more sustainability classes, I have become more aware of my personal carbon footprint. One of the first things I cut out of my diet was beef and other meats. I soon found myself cutting out almost all dairy products, besides cheese and butter. I’m not sure I’ll ever give up cheese, as it is one of my favorite foods, however I only really buy and eat it on special occasions. Butter on the other hand was something I was totally willing to give up. That is when I stumbled upon palm oil.

Palm oil takes a lot less land to produce than butter and other vegetable oils. When you factor in the land needed to feed cows, palm oil emits a lot less greenhouse gas. Although you may not cook with it, chances are that you buy it or own products that contain it. More than half of all packaged items consumed in the United States contain palm oil [1], this fact shocked me when I read it. I had heard of palm oil a handful of times but never imagined it would be so essential for the economy or the way we live. Palm oil, as a crop, produces incredibly high yields compared to vegetable oils. IUCN Director Anderson said “Half of the world's population uses palm oil in food..”[2], an even more astonishing fact to me.

As important as palm oil is for the economy and diets around the world, not all the impacts of this crop are positive. Although palm oil is more sustainable to produce than butter in terms of CO2 emissions and land needed to produce it, the crop still leads to massive deforestation of tropical environments. Oil palm expansion is one of the major leaders of deforestation behind cattle ranching and local and subsistence agriculture [3]. Palm oil, which is grown in tropical climates, threatens global biodiversity. Growing this crop usually replaces entire tropical forests, which are hubs of species rich environments.

It is estimated that palm oil expansion could affect a little more than half of all the threatened mammals and 64% of all threatened birds [3]. The loss of biodiversity will be tremendous if we continue producing palm oil the way we have. Deforestation not only threatens the homes of many species but also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. The deforestation techniques used are also cause for concern. The burning of trees has been used to clear land and is causing smoke haze. 

Palm oil is not going anywhere due to its global importance economically and dietarily. It is a very effective crop when compared to yield rates of other vegetable oils. However, as it has been highlighted it is nowhere near being the perfect crop and is causing major problems to global biodiversity.

So what should we do?  Boycott palm oil entirely?  Unfortunately, avoiding palm oil wouldn't solve the problem.  We'd need to replace it with another type of oil or fat that would almost certainly be less efficient and lead to even MORE deforestation.  Instead, we need to use more sustainable palm oil, such as that produced by companies participating in the roundtable on sustainable palm oil.

[1] https://www.worldwildlife.org/industries/palm-oil 

[2] IUCN (18 June 2018). “Saying ‘no’ to palm oil would likely displace, not halt biodiversity loss – IUCN report”. Available at https://www.iucn.org/news/secretariat/201806/saying-no-palm-oil-would-likely-displace-not-halt-biodiversity-loss---iucn-report 

[3]​​ Meijaard, E., Garcia-Ulloa, J., Sheil, D., Wich, S.A., Carlson, K.M., Juffe-Bignoli, D., and Brooks, T.M. (eds.) (2018). Oil palm and biodiversity. A situation analysis by the IUCN Oil Palm Task Force. IUCN Oil Palm Task Force Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. xiii + 116pp.