From mince pies and biscuits to lipstick and soap, palm oil grown on deforested land in south-east Asia will have been hard to avoid this Christmas. The vegetable oil is found in almost half of all packaged products in UK supermarkets, according to WWF.
But a growing number of towns and cities are trying to use only sustainable palm oil, helping orangutans, tigers, Sumatran rhinos and many other threatened species.
Led by Chester in north-west England, the world’s first sustainable palm oil city, restaurants, small businesses and arts venues are joining forces to eradicate deforestation-linked forms of the vegetable oil from their supply chains. A school dinner provider in Chester has even signed up, the first to be certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Oxford, Plymouth and the village of Mochdre in north Wales are following Chester’s lead, with more expected to follow.
“The palm oil situation is a big problem,” says Catherine Barton, a field conservation manager at Chester zoo, who has led the sustainable city campaign after a visit to Malaysian Borneo. “Populations of forest elephants and orangutans are separated by plantations. You get human-wildlife conflict when they move into those areas. It was from working with communities that we thought as users [of palm oil], we can try to change the industry.”
The UK is a small consumer of mainly sustainable palm oil. Globally, most palm oil is produced in Indonesia and Malaysia and is not sustainably certified by the RSPO. While companies such as Iceland have stopped using palm oil, Barton says an outright ban isnot the answer and making sustainable palm oil the default ingredient in products, from baby formula to shampoo, would have a much bigger impact on conservation, while supporting communities that rely on the palm fruit crop.
Chester zoo has helped businesses such as a small Welsh fudge producer and an animal food provider to review and adapt their supply chains with the goal of removing all products containing non-RSPO certified palm oil.
What is palm oil?
Palm oil is a vegetable oil produced from the fruit of oil palm trees and is originally from Africa. It comes in two forms: one from pressing the flesh of oil palm fruit, the other from crushing its kernel.
Palm oil is one of the most widely used ingredients in the world and is the most efficient vegetable oil to grow, requiring far less land than alternatives like rape seed and maize. However, large areas of rainforest have been cleared for its production.
What contains palm oil?
Palm oil is everywhere and is often not clearly labelled. Detergent, ice-cream and biofuel are all likely to contain it. WWF produces a list of products that probably contain palm oil.
How can I avoid deforestation-linked palm oil?
While a considerable amount of environmental destruction is linked to the production of palm oil, many conservation NGOs warn it would be a mistake to boycott it. Instead, WWF, Chester zoo and others advocate the use of sustainable palm oil accredited by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). This should be clearly labelled on products.
“If you go palm oil free in the UK, you’re not going to have an impact on orangutans or influence the industry,” says Barton. “So, as an NGO, we feel that we have to be part of that conversation. And we use the UK and Europe as that influencer to change the industry rather than remove ourselves from it.” Barton emphasises that palm oil is a far more productive crop than alternatives such as rapeseed or maize.
Large areas of Indonesia and Malaysia have been deforested for palm oil plantations, including carbon-dense peatlands that have been drained and burned, causing enormous greenhouse gas emissions.
At Cop26 in Glasgow, world leaders pledged to halt and reverse deforestation and degradation by 2030. Greening global supply chains will be key to achieving that goal. To help protect standing forests, RSPO certification accredits producers and consumers of sustainable palm oil. The UK government is consulting on plans to ban large companies from using products grown on illegally deforested land.
Jason Ellison, proprietor of a French restaurant, Chez Jules, was among the first businesses to sign up to the campaign in Chester. He says reviewing his supply chain meant searching for palm oil in unusual places.
“I’m not a scientist. The zoo was very helpful. They gave us a list of all the places where you’d find palm oil – in bread, cake mixes, baking products … We use digestive biscuits as a base for one of our desserts, for example. That’s where we were zooming in.”
Ian McGrady, managing director of Edsential, a social enterprise that provides school dinners in Chester, says becoming the first RSPO-certified school food provider in England has helped teach children about where their food comes from.
“What we want to do is link the school meal to field conservation, so children get to see that if they make a decision, they can make a difference on the ground. Cost tends to trump any kind of ethical sourcing, even within schools,” he says. “We worked with main suppliers to see where they were in terms of palm oil and certification. It absolutely can be done.”
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