Analysis paralysis in the palm oil industry. Palm oil is grown in the Tropics on land cleared from the rainforests. It is contained in 50% of all products consumed in the industrialised world, including everything from soap to jet fuel. Most efforts to contain the expansion of the industry and save rainforests have failed.
The World Wildlife Fund has worked together with big corporations who use a lot of palm oil to try to build a “route to sustainability” with certified sustainable palm oil, but the sad fact is, the tropical rainforests are still disappearing fast.
The big argument they use is that palm oil palms provide huge harvests and are so productive, the alternatives grown in temperate regions would require four times more land. This doesn’t stand up to the obvious counterargument that tropical rainforests are ten times more valuable in terms of nature and carbon than the temperate climate equivalent.
Best to take the straight-forward approach to avoid palm oil derived products and choose the palm oil-free alternatives.
